Yes. Some of the rooms are still intact, especially the subterranean ones.

It doesn't look like it. He doesn't see anyone.

Oh.

He should probably get out of here now. Is there a warehouse he can get to?

Yes, although they're now exposed to vacuum.

That's fine. He just wants to get one of the half-meter long plutonium batteries. Actually he's going to get multiple and put them inside his pocket dimension by stuffing them down his cowboy hat.

He's going to conjure his motorcycle now – the motorcycle Gran gave him – though he doesn't know where to go.

Gran and Dee said that there were a lot of witches on Earth. They told him that when he was taking Aethernautics classes. He should go to Earth.

His Witchery has a speed of 89.408m/s. His motorcycle has a speed of 116.23m/s. He's done speed tests with his Metallurgy and Windkeeping before. He thinks he can get a speed of 1300m/s from Metallurgy and Windkeeping, each.

He'll call on Aethernautics to tell him how far away Earth is from Mars.

It's about 225.308 million meters away.

That's very far away. But in space, there's no air. He remembers that that's called 'vacuum'. Which means that there would be no air slowing him down, and he could get faster and faster. But of course, he would need to slow down before reaching Earth, or he would hit it very, very hard. And it would not be good for him or the witches living on it. He'll accelerate all the way until he gets halfway, and then he'll accelerate the reverse way, to slow him down.

His motorcycle takes 15 seconds to get up to full speed. That's an acceleration of 14.528m/s².

His witchery takes 10 seconds. That's an acceleration of 8.9408m/s².

Controlling both himself and his motorcycle with Metallurgy and Windkeeping...he thinks he can get to the maximum total speed of 2600m/s in 6 seconds. That's an acceleration of 430m/s².

In total, that's 450m/s².

He doesn't need to worry about g-forces – he's become immune to them.

He needs to figure out how long it will take for him to reach the halfway point. The equation for that will be (t/2)*(450t/2) = 225308000.

Solving for t, he gets 1000 seconds one way. 2000 seconds to account for deceleration. That's 33 minutes. Very doable, though he'll want a snack on the way to account for all the mana he'll be using up.

He opens his mouth, and out comes a swarm of nanites – it looks like black sand with sparkling grains of red mixed in – and they form a cable connecting the plutonium battery to his mouth. So he can sip on electricity while he's traveling.

There is now someone on a motorcycle traveling towards Earth at 0.0010c and increasing.

Fully mistressing the Aethernautic arts creates awareness of millions of cosmic bodies, of which small and artificial ones qualify.

There are a lot of artificial cosmic bodies near Earth. There are not millions. This leaves a mistress aethernaut, at least one who spends a lot of time in time-dilated domains and has plenty of attentional capacity relative to the outside of them, in a good position to be on the lookout for any unexpected new ones.

Lunabella and the O.R.C. have agreed that Lunabella, which in this case means 'in significant part Einodia personally', will take the lead on handling space issues aside from those arising from nonmagical terrestrial activity.

Thaaaaaat looks like Mars is doing orbital bombardment of Earth, but using only one projectile – no, it's a witch on a Hellrider, and she's still accelerating. What is Alphazon doing this time? Why does everyone keep refusing to be reasonable?

It is probably in the general case good that Aethernautics true-name finding doesn't cover people, but it's in the specific case a bit inconvenient. (The true name of the Hellrider is basically just a serial number, and the rider almost certainly also knows it and might have a soul-bond with it, so it's not very helpful.)

Einodia tells her servant where she's going and why and then makes and goes through a rift on her broomstick. It's stationary in CoNRAD's frame of reference.

Oh no!!! What is that thing!!! He has never seen such a thing before!!!

He will put out more black and red sparkling sand from his mouth, and now the motorcycle and him are now enclosed in a steel sphere.

Cyborg-y and heading from Mars. This absolutely reeks of Alphazon.

And now Einodia has, technically, met the witch! She'll Send a message to him. (This is in English speech and text, because Alphazon tends to use English.)

"You are on a high-speed collision course with Earth. If you continue on this course and enter into Earth's sphere of gravitational influence, I will arrest you and turn you over to the custody of Occult Research and Containment."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa someone is speaking to him and he doesn't know how!!! It feels very weird. It's like he's reading, but he's not.

"Hello. Who is this?" he'll say in plain speech.

…no reply. Might be a language issue, might be a Restriction issue, though those really tend to show up only in unguided awakenings.

Einodia is a Calamity-grade Windkeeper. She'll conjure air to make contact with the sphere and catch the end of that sentence. "I am Einodia, founder of Lunabella, acting in defense of Earth in order to fulfill Lunabella's agreements with Occult Research and Containment."

This gets repeated over Sending and directional radio, in case the witch is listening to either.

He does not have radio currently!

Oh, he can hear her now. But also read her. Weird, but okay.

"Hello, Madam Einodia," he says. He has no idea who Einodia is, or Lunabella or Occult Research and Containment.

"I'm traveling very fast because I want to go to Earth. I heard that there are a lot of witches there." He wants to ask whether Einodia is a witch too, but he thinks yes? And he's not sure if he can ask questions.

He heard that there were a lot of witches there. This sounds less like an Alphazon agent and more like an Alphazon project.

"If you continue accelerating towards Earth, you are going to cause a dramatic impact, damaging your surroundings and likely yourself, and embed yourself in Earth's crust. Earth is a very highly populated planet, mostly populated by non-witches. Most of the non-witches are not supposed to know that magic exists, and some of them have access to tools which measure large impacts. There are places where you can meet witches, but just going towards Earth at speed is not the right way to do this, except in that it will attract attention such as myself. Do you understand?"

Oh. He didn't know that Earth also had a lot of non-witches! He has never met a non-witch before. He had assumed that like, witches were the norm on Earth and non-witches were a minority.

"Yes, Madam, I understand."

He wants to ask why non-witches can't know about magic. He also wants to ask where the places he can meet other witches are, but he's still unsure whether or not he can ask questions.

And he's not sure whether Einodia wants him to stop going to Earth. It seems like it, but she just said it was a bad idea, not that she's telling him not to. So he's not sure...he's going to stop accelerating but is not going to decelerate either.

"You should either make a better plan for going to Earth or pick an alternate destination. Do you need assistance with this?"

"Yes, Madam. I don't know where the other places I can meet witches are."

"The most witch-populated non-Earth location you can reach via your current mode of transit is Lunabella, whose population consists entirely of people permitted to know about magic. Luna is Earth's only moon, and Lunabella is a set of magically sustained environments located on the portions of Luna not facing towards Earth. Long-term residence requires that you find and submit yourself to a local matron, but visiting does not. Lunabella offers free portal access to Hawthorne, a well-renowned witch school that's operated for over a millennium, and Arcadia, a modern witch school which places remarkably few requirements on its students."

He is Listening and Learning.

He is going to take a risk and say what he wants.

"I want to visit Lunabella. And also visit Hawthorne and Arcadia, if it is allowed."

How does she react to that.

"Lunabella, Hawthorne, and Arcadia all permit visitors. If you wish to visit all of them, you should not submit yourself to a Lunabellan matron or enroll in Hawthorne before doing so, as a matron or Hawthorne would potentially subsequently restrict your freedom of movement and enforce this with Covenants magic. Arcadia will not do this, and if you are the uneducated witch you appear to be, they will offer you food and shelter for a time while you orient yourself so long as you claim to be considering enrolling. I will instruct you on an appropriate landing site in Lunabella, which will put you within 5 kilometers of a visitor information booth. The worker at this booth will at your request direct you to other sites on Lunabella including the Arcadia and Hawthorne portals, and answer other similar questions if nobody else is asking for directions."

Oh good. Madam Einodia seems nice, like Grandma and Dee.

"I will not submit myself to a Lunabellan matron or enroll in Hawthorne before visiting all three.

I do not know what Covenants magic is.

I am...I do not know if Arcadia would consider me educated or uneducated.

Thank you for instructing me on an appropriate landing site in Lunabella."

He is going to Take A Risk and remove his steel sphere, and it disintegrates into a cloud of the same black and glittering red sand that he hoovers up with his mouth.

He looks identical to a Neutral witch save for his faintly glowing red eyes, except for the Alphazon label behind his neck (although it may not be visible at this angle) and his large size – a comparison to Daeva might be more accurate: he's 285cm tall. He's wearing a cowboy hat, a leather vest – just the vest – and brown pants and boots. They do seem to be his mothergifts.

“If you genuinely did not prior to this conversation know of Lunabella, Hawthorne, or Arcadia, Arcadia and the typical witch would consider you uneducated. Covenants magic is a means of magically enforcing laws and agreements.”

Einodia does not pause to breathe. She just pauses. “I would like to ask you questions about Alphazon.”

He doesn't know whether that's good or bad. Probably good, because nothing is happening to him right now. And he could get food and shelter at Arcadia, later. If he wanted to.

The concept of wanting things and doing things to get them is very new, and he likes it.

He can relate! He doesn't need to breathe either. Not anymore.

"I can answer questions about Alphazon, Madam."

“I am now recording this conversation. What is the first interaction with Alphazon you remember having?”

He is mentally taken aback at Einodia saying that, because he had assumed that she already was. It is very surprising to know. His face doesn't show that, though.

"I have an eidetic memory because of my implants. I think they took out some of my memories because there are gaps in it. The earliest memory I can recall is Dee teaching me how to read, but I didn't know him by that name at the time. My earliest memory is also my earliest remembered interaction with Alphazon. That was one thousand nine hundred and ninety five days ago. Do you require more precision?"

He is probably going to get in so much trouble for talking, but he is already going to get in so much trouble for destroying the base and leaving, and he thinks at some point you just reach the maximum value of trouble and can't increase it anymore.

“When you say ‘day’, do you refer to a cycle between periods of sunlight and darkness on Mars, or a 24-hour cycle, or something else?”

"A day is 24 hours, Madam. I was taught to use days except when we went outside, in which case we used sols. Sols are 39 minutes longer. Dee said that people used days on Earth, and Alphazon came from Earth, which is why we used days."

He really liked going outside! There is a lot of space outside, and he likes having lots of space.

"Do you remember any time prior to having access to magic?"

"No, Madam. But in my earliest memories, I didn't know how to use my magic, and I had to be taught how."

"When you were instructed on how to use magic, did this cover the physical tolerances of unaugmented humans, or any explanation of the Veil and Masquerade?"

"No, Madam."

Madam Einodia seems nice, so he won't just answer her questions with the bare minimum.

"I knew of non-witch humans before, but did not know about the fact that they must not be allowed to learn about magic."

You are not supposed to awaken a witch without explaining the basic rules to them. It is straightforwardly in Alphazon's interests to keep this in mind, because Alphazon lives in reality, which is, interestingly, the same place that would start to break down if the Masquerade came undone! Perhaps Alphazon has somehow managed to avoid realizing this. It is, after all, run by the sort of people who aggressively pursue immortality while rarely thinking about any time further than at best a decade into the future.

It is possible that, as-written, educating someone you Awaken and then wiping their memory is permissible, but if so, that is an oversight which was probably caused by the common but false belief that people wouldn't actively sabotage their own safety for no real gain.

The O.R.C. really needs to stop letting Alphazon's behavior slide and agree to help coordinate a raid. Yes, it is true that interfering with Alphazon would probably irritate a lot of modern witches who like HexVPN. Yes, it is true that Alphazon runs critical portions of Earth communications and transit infrastructure which could be very costly to replace and which some people would die from interruptions to. Yes, probably a bunch of dangerous projects would get loose all at once instead of at a slower pace. However, Alphazon shows no sign of seeing reason, and all of these costs will be worse, not better, if things continue as they are indefinitely.

This case probably isn't actually going to convince the ORC to cooperate, though. Raiding Alphazon without their cooperation would either fail or cause massive masquerade damage, so it's probably not going to happen this decade, and they're just going to all be stuck waiting for more idiocy like this. Still. Most people these days like children, right? Having more documentation of Alphazon mistreating a child might sway some audiences who don't care about the masquerade-enforcement side.

"For clarity, it is the case that the overwhelming majority of non-witch humans must remain unaware of magic, not that any specific non-witch human that a magic-aware person deeply cares about cannot be told. It's like how – you've probably never seen a stone wall, have you. Never mind. The information desk worker should be able to explain or direct you to someone who can, don't go around telling people on Earth things in the meantime."

"Did you want to go to Earth solely for your own purposes, or did Alphazon in any way encourage you to go?"

"I have built and seen stone walls. That was one of the Earthmoving exercises I did.

I will not cause the overwhelming majority of non-witch humans to become aware of magic."

He doesn't know why, but Madam Einodia wants him to do it, and it seems very easy to do, since it only requires doing nothing.

"I wanted to go to Earth because it was the only other place I knew that had witches in it, previously. Dee and Grandma – two witches who were part of my trainers at Alphazon – told me about it, but they did not tell me I should go there. They merely said that that was where a lot of witches lived."

"Ah. In that case, I will explain. The masquerade, where humans on Earth generally do not believe in magic, is like a wall, in that it prevents various hazards from entering our reality. Like a wall, if it loses a lot of components, it will cease to function as a barrier and instead function as a disorganized mess. However, again like a wall, losing a few components here and there is survivable as long as it's maintained regularly, and Earth regularly produces new uninformed humans. Thus, magical beings permit each other to inform the occasional Earth human if that human is trustworthy, but do not permit each other to do so for arbitrarily many humans. This is a vast oversimplification, but when I've tried to explain the un-simplified form, it just confuses most people."

"I understand, Madam. The masquerade is metastable and can tolerate a nonzero but limited amount of disruption."

A pause.

"I think Alphazon will be, or is, very angry at me and I will be,or am, in a lot of trouble."

"I think Alphazon has behaved in a way which will cause other people to be very angry at them, both regarding you and under other circumstances. It's possible that you could use that to get those people to protect you from Alphazon being angry at you, though in practice this would be complicated and easy to do badly. In particular, I am powerful and very angry at them, but I am offering advice, not my personal protection. You do strike me as rather combat-capable for a new witch, though."

"More specifically: Awakening a witch, especially a powerful witch, without explaining the masquerade to her is the sort of thing that predictably damages the masquerade. …Removing a powerful witch's memories of the masquerade also predictably damages the masquerade, but is significantly rarer, so people who want to work with Alphazon may find it easier to excuse the behavior if Alphazon says they did that. I'm hoping they didn't."

He is going to ask A Question.

"In what way is it easy to do badly?

I did a lot of combat training but I have no calibration on whether or not I'm powerful or capable."

Also he's going to start decelerating now!

"Do you want me to go to to Lunabella now, Madam?"

"Since I'm still here, I can make us a rift, it'll be faster. I may want you to answer more of my questions in the future, but I expect to be able to contact you if you take any of the options I've recommended."

And now there is a rift.

The rift is opens out onto a large plaza. The sky above it is blue, with clouds. The plaza itself is paved with a colorful mosaic, depicting patterned borders surrounding broom-riding witches and strange golden twisted-cones with fruits and vegetables pouring out from them. The mosaic extends up the sides of slightly raised planters featuring colorful and elegantly arranged arrays of plants, some of which are in bloom and many of which are very tall. What might be the center of the plaza has a fountain with water traveling pretty high into the air and falling more slowly than water would on Mars, and some kind of lighting setup that illuminates the jets with an array of colors, including near-infrared and two shades of ultraviolet. The edges of the plaza have some paths, a lot of vendors, and a booth whose very large sign labels itself as 'Visitor Information'.

"Put away your vehicle before you go, it's a busy area." Einodia gestures expansively towards the rift.

"Yes, Madam," he says.

Wow! Madam Einodia is indeed powerful. He has never seen anything else like that. Well, aside from the rift she made earlier.

"I will put away my vehicle before I go." And his motorcycle disintegrates into the same sand and goes into his hat, which he has held out for this purpose. He'll use Windkeeping to bring him through the rift.

It is so colorful. He has never seen anything that colorful in his life! And so much of it! His room at the base was all grey and white with the faintest ultraviolet from the lights. And plants!!!!! He has never seen plants in real life – only that which Dee showed him with pictures. And water! There's so much water. He's never seen that much. Mars is very dry and there is no water outside, and very rarely is there water inside. Only when there's Waterworking practice, and he only did that for a little bit. He didn't know lights could be colorful like that, either.

There are so many thing he hasn't seen and he is now seeing! It feels very good to look at it all. Very, very good.

He is going to spend a quarter of an hour looking at things before he realizes he should go to Visitor Information, unless Einodia interrupts him.

No, Einodia is going to head home as soon as the new witch is in an informative and somewhat secure environment. She'll write an email to her usual ORC point of contact with recording attached.

The ORC cannot make any commitments at this time but will investigate.

Visitor Information is staffed by a young woman who appears to be made of white ceramic. As CoNRAD approaches, she turns to face him. "Welcome to Lunabella. How can I help you?"

"Hello, Madam. Madam Einodia said that I should talk to you for directions, especially directions to the portals to Hawthorne and Arcadia."

"Hello, sir. Einodia personally–? Never mind. Welcome to the Chasmapolis arrivals plaza!" The doll gets out a colorful, glossy folded paper brochure and unfolds it. "Here's a city map, we're here and the portal hub is here. The portal hub will have clear signage and its own information desk. Would you like verbal instructions on street-level travel, verbal instructions on flying there, me to highlight the route on the map for you, or anything else?"

He's very good at navigating from maps. There was a lot of training about that. He doesn't really need to, but he realizes that he doesn't need to ask for permission to make things now! It is So Good.

He will make a 1:1 copy of the city map by embossing it on a thin steel sheet. It's monochrome. He could use Hexes and Metallurgy to change the metals on the sheet to correspond to different colors, but he doesn't feel like doing that right now.

He can just choose not to do things because he doesn't want to do them. It is So Good.

"No thank you, Madam. Madam Einodia said that I should not get a Lunabellan matron or enroll in Hawthorne before visiting all the places I want to visit, because doing those would prevent me from leaving or moving around. How does getting a Lunabellan matron stop me from leaving or moving around?

"Lunabellan clients are indentured to their matrons via Covenants, so that a matron may be confident in her investment in her clients. Covenants magic can be used to bind people to follow agreements they make. The details of these Covenants vary, but many of them would enable a matron to restrict the movements of her client, at least to the extent of preventing a client leaving Lunabella entirely. At least aside from holidays, of which there are none immediately due. Hawthorne also requires students to sign enrollment Covenants. These typically provide for a day off per week, but this can be and often is restricted in response to student transgressions and failures."

That sounds Bad. Hawthorne sounds even worse. It sounds like Not Getting To Do Things and Having To Do Things all over again. Can he have Not That.

Hm. Since he is visiting, he could probably talk to people about potentially being so indentured, but like, not actually doing it until he finishes visiting. That complies with what Madam Einodia said.

It sounds like he can choose to not be indentured but he wants to confirm that.

"How do you meet a matron? Can you choose not to be indentured, even if you've met with a matron?"

"Many people on Lunabella are matrons. You can choose not to be indentured, even if you've met with a matron. Becoming indentured in a manner that Lunabella law respects requires that you formally sign a contract, on physical paper with a special purple ink, in a witnessed ceremony. It's possible for particularly skilled Covenants practitioners to make an agreement be magically binding through other means, but if someone does this to you, Lunabella law will side with you should you escape her or she be otherwise caught, and will force her to pay you fines. Still, we advise that you not make agreements you do not wish to keep, especially not in writing, with someone whose eyes are glowing, or with a handshake."

"There are many matron-client matchmakers who interview prospective clients and then schedule meetings for them with interested matrons. In this plaza, Clothildis has her client Zamira – greenish dragon-headed young lady, tends towards wearing a bit of armor, hard to miss – taking interviews."

Oh good.

"I will not make agreements I do not wish to keep, especially in writing, with someone whose eyes are glowing, or with a handshake."

In that case he would want to meet matrons and see what they're like, although he won't agree to any contracts until he has finished his Witch Tour.

"Thank you for your service. Goodbye."

He will turn on his heels and walk across the plaza, his minor electric field traveling with him as he goes. It feels so so so good to be able to walk around like this. He will do a cartwheel. And a walkover. And a split leap.

Okay. Greenish dragon-headed young lady, probably wearing armor. He is going to look for her. Does she seem busy? Is she currently talking to someone?

Well, there's some metal around with greenery viewable behind it, and a woman with green skin and a face that's humanoid except for the tusks.

Aaand there's a greenish dragon-headed young lady wearing armor. She's at a stall, and someone's walking away from it.

Cool! He has never seen that kind of witch before. He has heard that there are many different kinds, but that most are Neutrals.

He will approach her stall.

"Hello, Madam. Are you Zamira?"

"Indeed I am, sir."

"The doll at Visitor Information said that there are many matron-client matchmakers who interview prospective clients and then schedule meetings for them with interested matrons. I would like to know more about what life is like for clients and what life is like being a client of Clothildis."

"Typically, a client performs domain-maintenance tasks and other labor, is encouraged in her skill and social growth, has some organized rest time which must be spent on her matron's estate or with her matron at social gatherings, and has some time during which she may do as she chooses. In this modern era, indentures will permit a client to leave and have no obligations other than regular payments, and specify that a client who develops the ability to break Covenants may retain her standing with Lunabella simply by breaking illegal Covenants on their behalf."

"However, the typical client is a mortal who takes on an indenture with significant debt in exchange for her immortality shortly after the beginning of service, or otherwise acquires significant up-front investment. More established clients take on agreements with significantly fewer obligations on either side. Also, many agreements are much shorter-term – the shortest I've facilitated was for twenty weeks and a day. Clients in these agreements typically have somewhat similar duties, but don't receive training in skills aside from domain maintenance, and spend more time being introduced socially. It's generally understood that a client in a short-term arrangement is interested in figuring out whether there's anywhere in Lunabella it makes sense for them to be."

"Being a client of Clothildis, for me, is going pretty well. I'm studying Domain magic under her, so I'm very good at maintenance, and I got enough power to change charge methods, which was very important to me. And, well, as you can tell I spend time doing interviews like this, which is light work and I get to meet a lot of people. But I spend more than half of my waking hours just … at her estate, reading a book or having friends visit or flying the aerial course or such. It makes her look good to her friends if I seem to be around and having fun."

Hm. So having a Lunabellan matron mean sometimes you can do what you want, and not do what you don't want, but sometimes Not That. Okay. That seems better than before, although he wants to minimize the amount of Not That.

He's heard about Covenants magic from Madam Einodia! He is Learning.

People at Lunabella seem much nicer and much more amenable to answering questions. It is So Good.

"I don't know what a 'payment' is. I don't know what 'debt' is. You don't have to be a mortal to be a client, right? I don't know if I'm a mortal or not. Or whether I have immortality. That is the inverse of being a mortal, right?" He thinks he got the affixes correctly.

"I've done maintenance before, but base maintenance, not domain maintenance. But they stopped having me do it, so I think I was bad at it.

I think I would be interested in a short-term arrangement. I am interested in figuring out whether there's anywhere in Lunabella it makes sense for me to be."

Oh! Domain is a kind of magic. And he didn't know you could change charge methods! Well, he supposes he can too. Sometimes he gets pellets, but sometimes he gets batteries. And he can eat both. So he can change charge methods too, he supposes.

"What do you mean that it looks good to her friends if you seem to be around her estate and having fun?"

Zamira looks taken aback. Some of this she knows how to handle. She Sends her friends to if any of them can do a species Identify in Chasmapolis Arrivals Plaza on short notice.

"You don't have to be mortal to be a client. I … how did you get to Lunabella? I've never handled a natural awakening, and it's rare for them to not understand payments or debts. Do you understand, uh, having more resources versus having less, I'm not sure how to explain why having happy clients makes a matron look good without that."

"That's good! I was traveling from Mars to Earth on my motorcycle when Madam Einodia told me to stop and come here instead, if I wanted to meet witches. I know what an awakening is, but not a natural awakening.

Yes, having more resources is like having more mana or more metal, and having less resources is having less of that. More resources means you can do more things. Is that correct?

Possible Alphazon project mess, huh. Well, he can't accidentally break the masquerade over here. This merits Sending Clothildis about the conversation so far.

"An awakening is when a potential witch becomes a witch. A natural awakening is when nobody walks the witch through the process and she gets power on her own, which might leave her pretty confused. If you're from Mars you're probably not a natural awakening who awakened there, it's more likely that your memory has been tampered with. Still, the information desk should have booklets for natural awakenings somewhere, and you might want one, I'll tell the doll she should send one over."

"The, uh. The insights you may be missing regarding resources are, well, probably several. But one of them is that if you have, say, metal, and you want, oh, air, let's say you want air, you could tell someone 'I will give you metal if you give me some air', and they might agree. And another is that if you show people you have a lot of resources, especially in a way that looks nice and like you're making wise decisions, they might be impressed. Having clients who are enjoying your estate is a way of showing you have resources, looks nice, and often looks like you're making wise decisions, because we're all going to be around a long time so it's wise to avoid making enemies, even of people who are mostly going to be weaker than you."

"I'm not sure if I had a natural awakening or not. I think my memories of my awakening were removed – I have an eidetic memory otherwise.

Oh, that makes sense. I can't create air. They really wanted me to but I couldn't, and it was very sad."

He considers the last thing for a moment.

"I think that makes sense. I like that having people like your estate is good." It's a very good system! It's a much better system!

"I might have an enemy now. Because I ran away from Alphazon, so I'm in a lot of trouble. Madam Einodia said that getting a powerful Lunabellan matron was one of the the things that could protect me. I did a lot of combat training but I don't know if I'm good at it."

This is the point at which something which seems kind of like a pigeon, but moving more rigidly and with different-looking eyes, flies over, drops a booklet on Zamira's desk, and leaves.

"Ah, here we are." Zamira passes the booklet to CoNRAD.

"And apparently you're a cyborg-sword hybrid? I don't know how cyborgs work, but swords don't senesce, so you should be fine there."

"If you have enemies and you're this confused, you might want a very short-term contract with someone powerful who's specifically offering a lot of protection while you figure things out. If you're not good at domain maintenance … there might be some tasks that take power more than skill which you could still produce value with on short notice, or you'd probably be able to provide sexual services, there's a lot more people who like men than there are men around."

He will immediately put up his Guardian's Wall in response to the pigeon!! And crouch behind it for half a minute before he responds to what Zamira has to say. He has really good reflexes.

Hm. Apparently it was only a courier? He will revert the shield to its normal form at keep it in its place on his back, attached to him.

"I see, thank you. So if I don't senesce, I'm immortal? I didn't know that me being able to turn into a sword was a species thing – I thought it was a wild magic.

Yes, that seems like it would be a good idea. But I'm planning on visiting Hawthorne and Arcadia too, before agreeing to anything, because signing on will prevent me from moving.

I don't know anything about Domain magic and don't know if I'll be any good at it.

Dee said that he likes having sex but he didn't tell me a lot about how it works. It didn't come up in my training."

"If you don't senesce, people can kill you, but you won't just die on your own from time passing. Swords are a species. It's very understandable that you aren't immediately interested in a contract – I don't have a lot of matrons who would be ready to interview you this second, either! If your background regarding sex looks like that, there are a few matrons who would see it as a plus for sexual services, but it's a category of service it's not incredibly rare for inexperienced people to feel unhappy about selling."

"Alternately, you could sell that shield, if it's not soulbound, though if it's stolen that'll limit the market. Also, booklet's for you."

Hm. That is so interesting. Why wouldn't they be upset that he is unexperienced and can't do things well? Usually that means people get upset and angry at you. Is it simply because people in Lunabella are nicer?

"I am not unhappy about selling it – I was just surprised that people would pay for me to do something I'm not experienced and skilled in doing. Usually if I'm not skilled at something people get upset and angry.

I don't know what it means for something to be 'stolen'."

He will accept the booklet and thank her!

"You're welcome! When there's a masquerade breach a lot of people get upset at anyone who had a cheap opportunity to prevent it and didn't take it, so it's in my interest to give cheap advice. And. Something is 'stolen' when you take it from someone else without their permission. If you took the shield away from Alphazon without their permission, Alphazon will likely try to get it back from anyone who buys it, so that makes it less nice to have."

"Oh. It was given to me, along with my motorcycle, but I don't know whether they'd want it back now that I left.

It's not soulbound though. Dee said that only warlocks can soulbind items and I'm not one. I'm a sorcerer.

What types of things does Clothildis want from her clients? Both in terms of behaviors and skills. I'm not sure what skills I have that others would find useful. Should I put up signs? Well, I wouldn't know what to put on them anyway..."

"I don't think Clothildis in particular is looking for new clients, the way this works is that I tell her about promising people and she recommends them to her friends and such. I have a list of useful skills I can ask you about. Matrons vary in terms of expected behavior, but you're respectful and open to instructions and that goes a long way."

"Understood, Madam. What are the list of useful skills? Or do you think I should just say what I can do?"

It's good that he's not acting incorrectly!

"You saying what you can do would be a good start, but given your ignorance I may want to ask follow-up questions to see if we're missing anything."

"The magics I have learned are Metallurgy, Integration, Gadgetry, Firecalling, Windkeeping, Hexes, Witchery, Earthmoving, Aethernautics, Waterworking, and Psychotics. I did very little work in Waterworking and Psychotics though. I think mine is bad because they made me stop doing it, even though it had only been for a little while."

"Regarding hexes: Can you convert water to gasoline? Metal to cloth? Lead to gold?"

"Yes. No. Yes."

Zamira whistles. "In that case, you should – wait, hold on. Do you transmute lead to gold via the sacrifice of Kisses or gems, or through other means?"

"No, Madam, it's free. But I have to use gems for water to gasoline."

"Alright. So. I'll mark you down as rank 3 hexes. As for witchery, can you modify the garments of others? If you're able to turn yourself invisible with your garment, you could probably learn tailoring."

"Oh, I don't know what ranks are. I didn't know that magic came in ranks.

I have never tried to modify the garments of others, so I don't know whether I can or not.

I cannot make myself invisible with my garment."

Is she going to be upset or angry that he can't do it?

She is not! (She is also not going to explain ranks in response to what might be an implicit question. It's not a good use of her time.) She is going to move onto her next question.

"How precise is your control over Firecalling, especially with regards to temperature?"

He was hoping that Zamira would talk more about ranks, but oh well. At least he's answering his other questions.

"I can control fire up to a range of 1500 meters. I can use my Firecalling to propel myself upward and glide, but I prefer using Windkeeping for that. I can concentrate fire to a thin ray, like a laser. I can control my fire to plus or minus 5 degrees Celsius. My eyes can track temperature, and I can use that to adjust.

I can also create fire that does not become dispelled or go out even if I leave it behind. That kind of fire doesn't need need fuel. However, I cannot make it move, unlike the first type of fire. This type of fire can also chill things. It can go below freezing temperatures. I have more control over the temperature of this fire – it can go from -20 degrees Celsius to 500 degrees Celsius with a precision of 1 degree Celsius. It also does not spread, unlike the other kind. "

"Alright, excellent, that has straightforward industrial applications. How are you at building structures with Earthmoving, in particular according to blueprints that call for gaps within the walls, and artistic sculpture?"

"I have only tried building very simple things like earthen walls using Earthmoving. My training focused more on power and speed than control. I have not tried making artistic sculptures with Earthmoving. I know how to extract metal from the ground using Metallurgy, and I can get ores too if I combine it with Earthmoving."

"Alright. If you're looking into longer-term contracts eventually, you may want to look into matrons who can offer Earthmoving control training, there's a lot of market for it. Did your Metallurgy training also focus on power and speed over control?"

"Both, Madam. Metallurgy, I think, is my best magic and it synergizes with my Gadgetry and my Integration. I can make stuff using it."

He will open his mouth and breathe out black and sparkling red sand, holding out his hand. It coalesces a few inches above it into a tiny Stirling engine with a wheel, and he uses Firecalling to conjure a tiny candle flame sized fire below.

The wheel turns.

"Oh, lovely. Very promising, very promising. We don't see a lot of call for windkeeping or psychotics work and you mentioned poor skill in waterworking, so I'll get started with the wild magic checklist. Are you immune to disease? Do you sleep? How hard is it for you to copy combat maneuvers you've seen people perform? Can you delegate simple tasks to telekinetic servantlike forces? Can you prevent organic material from rotting?"

"I have never had a disease before. I don't know if I'm immune to disease.

I do not sleep.

I can copy something someone does if I've seen it once before. It can work if it's a recording, but not perfectly. Usually I only get some intuition then, and I need further practice or more recordings or one with higher quality.

No.

Yes, if I put it in my hat's dimension, but that's not a wild magic. So no."

"Can you intuitively determine the most efficient way to kill a living being by looking at it? Do you have a particular talent for creating tunnels? Is it easy for you to use spells through electronics including computer networks?"

"No. No, except for Earthmoving, which is not a wild magic. It is easy for me to use spells through and on electronics, but I have not tested it through computer networks. I can replicate pieces of technology I break down with my nanite swarm – does that count? It includes networking equipment, like radios."

"It's certainly relevant."

"The next thing we need to discuss is your tolerance for positions involving combat. You will be expected to participate in defense of your household regardless of position, but you do likely qualify for more combat-intense positions than that, especially given your secondary species. However."

Zamira takes a breath. "Combat can be taxing in ways that combat training is not. Combat involves the destruction of life, often life which wants to exist exactly as much as you do. Combat involves making split-second decisions with serious stakes. It may be against people you think have good reasons for opposing your commander. It may be against Outsider-corrupted versions of people you care about."

"Clothildis does not want to recommend anyone for combat roles who does not think she– sorry, they– can tolerate this. If you turn down a combat role before becoming a client, nobody reasonable will think less of you for it. If you attempt to leave a combat role in the field, this will cause serious consequences for you and your matron."

He cannot relate to taking breaths, because he doesn't need to do that anymore.

"Oh. That's fine, I've already killed people before. I don't think it's taxing to me. What are Outsiders?"

"Outsiders are entities from far beyond the relatively normal parts of reality, everywhere you can reach on a broom and a lot of places you can't. They attempt to cause suffering and instability, and even looking at their true forms can be destabilizing, though Psychotics helps a bit. Incoherent masses of eyes and tentacles are characteristic of them, but the absence of this isn't a reliable indicator of safety."

"I see. I will look out for them. I don't think there is any risk of me encountering Outsider-corrupted versions of people I care about, because everyone I care about is dead."

"Mm. Further questions. Do you know what your weapon form is? Have you been wielded before? How do you feel about roles involving that?"

"Greatsword. Yes, though only for training. I haven't been wielded much at all. I think I'm fine with the possibility of being wielded, but I want to know who I'll be wielded by before agreeing, and have the option to refuse."

He breathes black sand and creates a scale model of the greatsword. It's a wide European style two-handed greatsword.

"It's about as tall as I am."

"Got it. I'd ask about bonding with a wielder, but you're looking for short-term agreements, and that's a longer-term thing."

"So. I will give your profile to Clothildis. I can let you know by Sending you once we have information on prospective matrons, or you can meet me here at the same time tomorrow, we should be able to find some offers then. I'm assuming you don't have a mailing address or such right now. Is there some other form of contact which would work better for you?"

"What is Sending?

No, I do not have a mailing address right now."

And now there is a message in his head, like Einodia used at first. «Sending is a rank-zero divination a witch can use to telepathically message people she has met. If you're not a natural awakening, it's unlikely that you're completely incapable of divination, so you should be able to learn to do it.»

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?"

He will stop when she does.

"I am not a student at Hawthorne, but was visiting to talk to people in it about what it's like, and potentially applying for admission."

"Oh! Uh. Then it's not a problem that you're out of uniform. Hawthorne … pushes hard but it makes you strong."

The witch visibly eyes his muscles. "But maybe you don't need that, pretty boy. I could walk you to the admissions office?"

He has not heard anyone describe him as pretty before! Dee talks a lot about things being pretty, but he hasn't heard him say that to him.

"Being strong is good," he says. "I don't know if I need it. And yes! That would be very helpful. There is no map or information booth here, and so I was wandering."

He will follow her.

She's going to put a hand on his shoulder while they walk and talk about how it's tragic that there are so few boys at Hawthorne, how does he feel about that?

He basically never gets touched at all, so the experience is Very Strange, but he doesn't flinch from it or remove her hand. He neither likes nor dislikes it.

"Why are there so few boys at Hawthorne?"

"Well, it's mostly women who get witchcraft, and when a boy does get it half the time he ends up being a girl for some reason. They say boys are weaker and develop more slowly in their power, but we have a lot of powerful witches already and we don't have a lot of cute boys. It's very tragic. Awakeners should have to tell the boys that before they become women, but the treaty doesn't require they give a balanced overview of those options, just a balanced overview of the factions."

"Oh." Well that makes sense. Aside from Dee, there was only one other man that he has seen back at Mars.

"I didn't know that. Why is it sad that there are few boys? In what way does it matter?"

Ah. Maybe the reason the people at Alphazon were upset about his performance so much is because he progressed too slowly for their standards?

"Oh, I can show you what it is that women like about cute boys if you'd like. Maybe in my room?"

Why does it need to be in her room. Why can't it be here?

"Is it on the way to the admissions office?"

"Well, it could be~"

What does that meaaaaaaaaan.

"I didn't know that Hawthorne changes its street layouts. I suppose it makes sense that it wouldn't have maps if that was the case. Do you use magic to move buildings? Is it Earthmoving? I know Earthmoving and Metallurgy."

"No, silly, I mean it could be on our way to the admissions office. It's not far away from there. Why's a pretty boy like you in such a hurry, anyway? It's night!"

"I have to meet someone in Lunabella about a day from now, and I want to visit Hawthorne and Arcadia before then so I can find out what they're like. These were the three places Madam Einodia told me might be good for me.

Oh. I didn't know that. I thought that this place was just dark." He is used to it being bright all the time from lights!

The witch looks startled. "Aww, you're Einodia's? I thought she wasn't into that."

He's not sure what she means by both of those sentences.

"I have not committed myself to anyone on Lunabella, because if I did, I would be constrained in looking at Arcadia and Hawthorne. Madam Einodia did help me before though, yes."

"But she didn't want to keep you? Her loss, I suppose. Lotta matrons send their pets here, for what it's worth."

He does not know what a 'pet' is and assumes that that's an alternate form for 'client'.

"I think not. She said that she was only giving me advice, not protection. And yes, I see. So in the case I do get a matron, I might still attend Hawthorne. What about Arcadia? What made you pick Hawthorne over Arcadia?"

He should probably hurry the conversation along.

"I can transport us to Hawthorne if you know the way. Do you have magic for transportation? I've been using Windkeeping this time."

"I have a broom we could ride, but if you want to carry me and fly I'm happy to give directions."

"I can do that. I haven't used Windkeeping on other people to propel them alongside me before, so I'll use Metallurgy instead. I'm better at it."

He will open his mouth and out comes black and sparkling red particles, that will coalesce into two two-meter long squares of thin steel.

CoNRAD will step on one and expect the other witch to follow suit.

…he's conjuring metal from nothing. Powerful. But not rejecting her, so: "Aww, can't we share? I could hold onto you if there's turbulence."

"Oh, right, you might fall. Here," he will say, before causing two waist-high U-shaped handrails to coalesce on opposite sides of the square the other witch is standing on. The metal is similar in color to the sand, being black with shiny red flakes or grains embedded within.

Great. A cute boy shows up to exercise with her and he's frigid.

"If we're not flying together I'd rather just lead you on my broomstick."

"Okay," he says plainly. He's not sure what's upsetting about having two platforms but okay.

He will cause both platforms to disintegrate into particles and eat them back up again.

"I will follow you."

And she'll lead on her broomstick! It's … not as fast as his top speed.

And there's a large building, with signage in many languages including English reading "Hawthorne Academy Admissions".

"Here we are. My email address is glitterspark6852 at gmail, message me anytime!"

"Thank you," he will say, and enter.

He doesn't know what an email address is, but he can learn about what that is later.

Is there someone inside that can help him? Are there signs that describe how the process works?

There is someone inside! Whether she can help him remains to be seen.

She looks to him. "Salve!"

He does not understand what the person said.

"Hello," he says back. "Is this the Hawthorne admissions office?"

"Yes, sir, this is the Hawthorne admissions office."

Great!

"Thank you, Madam. I would like to learn more about Hawthorne – about what life is like here, and how one might enroll in it."

"You are in the right place for learning more about Hawthorne, sir. This office has English-language brochures which cover topics including student life. Students who wish to be admitted to Hawthorne must be tested for aptitude and personality. This doll can administer some of these tests."

Tests. He's kind of ambivalent to tests, but whatever.

"What tests can you administer? Aside from those ones that you can do, what other ones will be required?"

"This doll can observe you completing a set of multiple-choice and written tests relevant to personality and aptitude. This doll can additionally perform preliminary observations of any magic demonstrations you wish to perform, though these demonstrations will need to be repeated for a witch proctor."

"When will the witch proctor be available? If it will be in a long time. I think I will read the brochures and take the written exams first."

"The witch proctor will be available in 6 hours and 32 minutes."

And the doll will hold out some papers. "Here are your brochures, sir. You may take them with you if you wish."

That's soooooooooo loooooooooooong.

"Thank you," he says to the doll, and accepts the brochures.

Probably the witch proctor will arrive in the daytime?

Anyway, he will take a look at the brochures now. What brochures did he get?

There's a guide to student amenities. The basics are that the closer he wants to live (where 'closeness' is measured by travel time by foot for someone who can activate portals), the more likely he is to have to have a roommate, unless he pays extra money. Free meals are served at these cafeterias, and there are also restaurants and food stands on campus, which are not covered. Students with special dietary needs can often be accommodated. Students with special mana charging needs can sometimes be accommodated, but in some cases these accommodations will be contingent on them pursuing an alternate charge method as their first developmental priority.

There's a department overview. There are departments including every ranked magic the last brochure mentioned as well as wandwork, theoretical magic, mathematics, physics, astronomy and astrology, biology, psychology and pneumology, economics, Earth studies, religious studies, language and literature, combat and athletics, and history.

There's an alumnae brochure. A lot of women who have graduated from Hawthorne do cool stuff!

There's a guide to choosing classes. All students will need to take introductory Latin before they can take most other classes. They'll be required to study magic appropriate to their class and affinities at least somewhat. The standard program requires that, in addition to magic classes, students study at least some language, history, and combat. Additionally, academics must take magical theory, warlocks must take religious studies, and sorceresses must specifically take power-control classes.

There's details on finances. Typically, students receive a stipend while in school and are in an income-sharing agreement that's usually quite generous compared to one from Earth, probably because it lasts for 500 years and also is enforced with Covenants. Students from wealthy families may be able to pay up front, and some students are sent to specific classes by other parties, like Lunabellan matrons. There are on-campus job opportunities for students who want extra spending money, but students are expected to prioritize their studies.

There's a guide to the student code. Lots of relatively minor things, such as tardiness, being distracting in the classroom, and so on, are punished with a single use of Sting, which is apparently a rank-2 Curse causing a brief painful experience. Other offenses, like academic dishonesty, are punished much more severely. Hawthorne will outright execute students who intentionally work with Outsiders.

He can use Windkeeping, Witchery, or Metallurgy to travel quickly...maybe not Witchery. But he can get a place far away so that he won't have to have a roommate. He would like to be Alone.

He wonders whether electricity is considered a special mana charging need. Maybe not? But Alphazon is not Lunabella or Hawthorne, so it's possible that they have less reliable access to electricity. He's gotten mana by siphoning the static electricity from Martian dust storms before, with coalesced electronics – if there are storms here, he could do something like that?

Ooooooh. He wants to take physics and Earth studies. He knows very little about Earth.

The cool stuff is Very Cool but he doesn't know whether the amount of Coolness is especially noteworthy.

He doesn't see why Latin is relevant. Actually, he kind of didn't realize that other languages existed before now. He has always only been exposed to English.

500 years seems kind of a Long Time. He should ask whether or not he'll still be subject to income-sharing if their potential Lunabellan patron tells them to come here.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. He doesn't like that. It's giving Alphazon. It's giving "no you can't move around freely anymore". He considers just walking out. If Arcadia doesn't have such policies, that will be a huge plus to Arcadia in deciding where he ought to go. He doesn't worry about being executed over working with Outsiders, because he has no plans to do so.

Is there any indication that there are different rules for different students? Maybe if he does well on the exams he can have Not That.

Possibly he should go to Arcadia now and return here later so that the witch proctor will be here and he can do everything all at once. Or would taking the written exams now be better?

"Do you recommend that I return later so that I can do all the requisite exams at once, or that I do the exams possible to do now, now."

"This doll recommends that you take the written exams now and return for magic demonstrations later."

Conrad will request to take the exams now. What is the procedure for taking them?

Written exams are administered in a secure testing room and observed by a Hawthorne doll. Test-takers must commit via Covenants to answering honestly without external help. He may have his choice of writing implements, such as a quill pen, a fountain pen, a pencil, a typewriter, or in the case of severe disability he may have a Hawthorne doll transcribe his answers for him. These tests are intended to produce a rough overview of his personality and capabilities, and testing out of courses can be done once he's enrolled.

He prefers to write on metal but he understands that probably many people do not have Metallurgy and would not share his preference. Can he use Metallurgy to cause his pen to move rather than move it with his hand? Many pens are too small and it's hard to use them.

Approximately how long will all the exams take?

Telekinetically operating a provided pen is fine, and they do have tools for making pens bulkier. It should be around two hours of exams.

How do you define 'external help'. He has an Observer integrated into his body that allows him to record and recall sensory experiences. Does this count as 'external help'? He has had it since his earliest memory and he doesn't know whether it could be removed. If he uses Metallurgy to conjure a calculator and use it to solve math problems, does that count as 'external help'? Even if he conjured the metal from nothing?

"Your case is unusual. This doll will consult a guidebook."

"Your Observer is permitted. Furthermore, it is possible that the code of conduct permits you to conjure your own calculator, and exam rooms are secured against external communication, not against elementalism. However, students are not intended to take their exams using calculators, under most circumstances, and this doll strongly recommends against doing so until and unless a witch administrator explicitly permits it. This doll will now clarify that these exams are intended to gauge your capabilities, and witches may attend Hawthorne regardless of their initial skill in mathematics."

"I understand, Madam. I will use Metallurgy to control my pen, and I will not create a calculator for the exam. Do you have a metal pen available to borrow?" If not, he'll ask whether a mechanical pencil would be permitted. He can make those.

"Yes, we have an array of metal pen types, sir."

He will take a black one and take out his plutonium battery to slurp up some electricity for a minute, and then say, "I am ready to take the exam now."

Most of the pens have black casing. Does he select a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen, a technical pen, a felt-tip pen, or is he looking for something else?

Also, regardless of what pen he chooses from the display selection, he will actually receive an identical model in the exam room.

Technical pen because it's the easiest to control.

Wow! Very cool. Where is the exam room? Is it marked? Will the doll lead him to it? Does he have anywhere to sit or does he have to make his own table and chair. Back on Mars he did that!

The doll will lead him to it, another doll can take over the desk. The room is labeled, but not in English. There is an adjustable chair, which the doll starts folding into a bench so as to better fit him, and a table. Once he and the doll enter and the doll closes the door (it has controls at servant-doll height), a pen and a set of papers will appear in the room.

He will thank the doll.

The bench is still a little cramped but he can deal.

What type of things will be on the exam?

Well, for the first page he's going to be signing a temporary academic honesty commitment in purple ink.

After that, if he proceeds, there's going to be questions from a range of academic fields, usually no more than a few questions for each difficulty level. In the case of, say, Latin, he can simply mark that he has no prior knowledge of the field.

There's another exam with questions about CoNRAD. What he thinks best motivates him, whether he likes loud music, how he feels about pain, whether he sleeps, how ambitious he is, how he feels about intoxicants, some questions about sex he doesn't have the information to answer. Normal things to ask.

He doesn't actually know about signatures, so he just puts his name on it – his whole name: Combination Null-Red Alphazon Destroyer. Probably he should come up with a different name for himself. Or say that CoNRAD, or Conrad, is his real name now. Maybe. Now's not the time to contemplate this.

Yep! He knows nothing about Latin.

He's fine at English but his vocabulary is lacking. He's good at astronomy, physics, and math. Chemistry somewhat. He knows little about everything else.

Previously he just had people tell him what to do and he did it. Now he can decide what he wants to do, and he thinks he likes that, at least, for the very short time he now has this luxury. He thinks he just likes doing things in general? He likes feeling strong and capable and training to enhance his capabilities, but in a general sense, not in the sense of being able to achieve any specific goal in particular. He doesn't want to be shaped that way – he wants to be a 'wide' kind of person that's capable of doing many different things. He likes the idea of being such a person.

He likes music. He has heard music very rarely in his life and doesn't know whether he likes loud music in general.

CoNRAD does not sleep.

CoNRAD doesn't mind pain very much. It's still of negative valence, but he can very much push through it, as well as discomfort.

CoNRAD doesn't know what intoxicants are, so probably no?

Yes, he knows basically nothing about sex and will write so.

How does he signal that he's done? Does the test vanish when he finishes?

Well, he could tell the servant doll, which is right there.

Ah. He wasn't sure whether that counted as outside help. He supposes it must not, because otherwise how would the test be taken away.

"I am done now, Madam," he'll say.

The doll takes the test from him. After a few moments, a small rift appears and the doll passes the test through it, then opens the door.

"Hawthorne appreciates your participation. Your results will be considered valid for the next decade, so if you wish to enroll without re-testing, you are advised to return before then."

Wonderful! He will thank the doll again and leave. He has four hours now before the proctor arrives. He should check Arcadia next. He wonders whether it will also be nighttime there.

He's not sure where the portal to Arcadia is in the town around Hawthorne, so instead, he'll walk (or fly via Windkeeping) back to Lunabella via the same portal he came in here with, and then walk to the Arcadia portal there, ensconced in Lunabella's zone of safe legibility.

Yup, there sure is a lot of signage and a portal to Arcadia he can find with his map. …it's really more like an entire bubble of Arcadia on Lunabella, actually.

Ooh! In that case, into the portal he will go! He will sprint towards it because he doesn't need to do street navigation and the way is Bright and Open unlike in Hawthorne.

The population here looks a bit younger than the population of Lunabella and a bit more male than the population of Hawthorne. Most people are in robes, but the color and style vary more, and some people are even wearing various novel styles of shirts and pants. Someone has shoes with wheels on them for some reason.

The gardens are styled in a very different fashion from Chasmapolis, and are rather sparser. There's an open-air café, where people are sitting around, chatting and looking at books and poking at phones and laptop computers and drinking beverages from mugs and eating snacks. There's a woman growing leaves prepping and serving food and beverages behind a counter.

The only real building within the bubble, as opposed to in Arcadia proper, is the astronomy and aethernautics department building. It's built in a style big on plate glass, bold colors, geometry, and nicely stained wood, and extremely low on detailed ornament. There's some weirdly winding trails into Arcadia proper with English-language signage, and grass that shows evidence people are ignoring the paved trails to take more efficient routes.

Shoes with wheels!!!! What a great idea. He is immediately going to put wheels on his boots.

It transpires that it is very difficult to balance on shoes with wheels, and he has to use a lot of Metallurgy and Windkeeping to prop himself up.

Food! And drinks! He wants to try some but that is not the main point of this visit.

He will obey the paved roads and not go on the grass, and just go really fast. He'll try to use his elementalism only to balance himself, and use only leg power to push himself forward. This is less of a disaster than it reads, because he can use the selfsame elementalism to course-correct long before there is any risk of crashing or going onto the grass.

He thinks he likes the fact that the Arcadians can wear whatever they want, unlike the Hawthorne people. It's not a particularly strong opinion, though. Opinions! CoNRAD likes having opinions now.

Will he reach the main building soon? If it takes more than fifteen minutes to get their via elementally assisted rollerskate, then he will fly a straight line path to it instead.

Some people are definitely going to dodge out of his way, even if he's trying to avoid crashes. A witch on a lightweight almost-2D (aside from handles and foot-cranks sticking out) two-wheeled vehicle mainly based around a pair of triangular shapes goes past him in the opposite direction, and for some unclear reason she rings an attached bell.

It does not take more than 15 minutes to get to what's at least plausibly the main building.

He almost wants to stop to look at it, but that would break his momentum. He'll review the footage from his Observer later and maybe try replicating it, though. It seems much more complex than "add tiny wheels on boots". He has no idea what the bell means!!

Does the main building have signage? Can he just walk in? Is there someone there that will attend to him?

Well. The main building might have some of those things, but one thing it definitely has is a portal between Combination Null-Red Alphazon Destroyer and it.

And a rapidly dropping temperature in the surrounding area. And something sending his tech shutdown commands.

Also, he now can't feel most of his left arm, has a truly agonizing headache, is being hit with a lot of nonmetal darts, and attacked by two remarkably large spiders.

None of this makes any noise, of course.

Oh no.

He is going to start running in the opposite direction, back from where he came. It's difficult to control multiple elementalisms at once, so he tries to multitask: he's going to use Windkeeping to propel himself towards Lunabella, not really bothering with keeping his legs on the ground anymore, and using it, alongside his energetic aura, to zap the spiders trying to bite him. He'll place another whirlwind around him to deflect the darts.

He wants to use his nanite swarm but it's not working, and he doesn't have the time to look through his Observer logs and try to override the shutdown.

That was really supposed supposed to outright down the destroyer. What gives?

The spiders are not significantly deterred by electric shocks, but it does make them have trouble grabbing at him.

His legs aren't responsive.

And there's more of those darts. Fun fact about the darts – they seem to be being fired by people. People with a distinctive pattern of metal at their brainstems and in some cases their eyes or limbs.

Fortunately, his elementalism is entirely separate from his technology!

It is very sad that the electricity is not doing anything! His control for Windkeeping isn't his best – he has much better control with Metallurgy – but it's pretty good. He'll make tiny razors of wind and try to cut the spiders apart.

It appears that learning how to control his metal body with Windkeeping rather than moving his muscles was much more useful than he was anticipating. Not being able to move his legs...it makes him want to have a panic attack over not being able to move but he is able to move, still, but it feels Very Weird because he's controlling his body but also simultaneously not controlling his body.

Hm. Okay. He really should have done more practice doing simultaneous elementalism. He will have to think about gracefully managing the transition from moving and fighting with Windkeeping to Metallurgy or his body will end up sprawling across the grass.

The spiders are taking some damage, but are extremely persistent.

Also, if he stops having control of his body, it will not be sprawled across the grass, it will be shoved through a portal. Just so we're on the same page here.

No!! No portals!! CoNRAD very much does not want to be shoved through any portals please and thank you. Unless it's a portal going to Lunabella.

After several seconds, he'll transition to using Metallurgy. It's doesn't make him go faster, but he's much better at using it. He'll take out the implants from everyone shooting darts at him and shape them into shards, shooting them into the spiders.

The guns aren't metal or such, he doesn't have a good feel for them, and visibility isn't great.

Is he suuuure he's only targeting people who are shooting at him? This person with weird curly strands of metal all over their head has some within a few inches of her brainstem, isn't she suspicious? What about this one with a metal skeleton, including the skull?

Also, this one has a bit of metal in her finger, and a bunch of people have metal in their earlobes, and this one has a partially metal leg, and a lot of people are holding metal rectangles, and there's of course all this metal around. Bicycles, zippers, buildings, et cetera. Just saying.

Mostly sure. Metal hair woman has some of her hair be ripped out. Metal skeleton person has nothing happen to them. Bit-of-metal-in-finger person has the metal bit ripped out. Two of the metal rectangle people have their rectangles fly out.

He does have the attention and the metal-sense necessary not to pull on the bicycles or clothes or buildings, though.

It turns out that having metal removed from the brainstem at speed is pretty lethal. The darts stop. One of the spiders outright vanishes. The other pauses, momentarily, and then stops attacking CoNRAD and starts throwing corpses through the portal.

Yes!! No more attacking him please!!

He is going to conjure his motorcycle. Fortunately, his motorcycle can fly. He will ride it as fast as he can back to Lunabella.

Ugh. Both the psychotic headache and maybe the darts – the darts probably had something in them he doesn't know what – are making him feel horrible and achy and none of his nanites are working and also he's bleeding a little from the darts. He will try to figure out how to regain control over his tech but it will take a while, and he's not really in a state to be doing intricate debugging work.

Well, that was a layer of miserable failure frosting, to top the miserable failure cake today has been.

The people who were supposed to be handling CoNRAD are dead. They didn't have his weakness prepped to go on short notice from locations aside from the Mars base, which is … a mess.

On the one hand, they have a tiny bit more information about what sorts of tranquilizers can get past CoNRAD's defenses. Maybe. And they recovered the corpses in decent state to patch them and get them back into operation.

They have clearly learned a Valuable Lesson about remembering to count all metal as hazardous around their escaped metallurge. One which they really should have anticipated in advance.

It would be really convenient if they could have sent in, say. Sara and Kara, or Vesuviannelle, or Vix, or XIN. But the first three are bleeding hearts, Vix probably just likes a guy who makes his own rollerblades immediately after seeing someone use them, and XIN doesn't do fieldwork.

They'll try to have a better plan for next time.

Gah! What happened‽

Admins have called for a lockdown, but everyone involved is already fleeing. Campus security is responding. Two wounded students, no dead students, a few missing students.

The wounds are to a fingertip and some skin. Skin near the head, so there's a lot of bleeding, but it's entirely treatable.

Reviewing footage … for one, Professor Coriander was probably right about not using stock security systems from Alphazon, those logs do not match the ones Coriander worked on. In particular, Coriander's logs make it clear that the missing students were involved in shooting at the visitor. Joy.

They'll search the campus for stragglers and eventually reopen and clean things up.

CoNRAD can go back to Lunabella, which continues to be lunar and beautiful.

...okay he's back at Chasmapolis now. He is so tired. He thinks he's going to just lie down on the mosaic tiles now. He will dismiss his motorcycle and grab his battery.

Resting for several minutes and refilling his electricity and mana stores makes him feel a lot better, but he's still in a lot of pain and discomfort. Time to start seeing how he can Alphazon-proof his tech. He really should have realized that they would manipulate him like that – he has grown so used to having their tech in him that he sees it as a part of him. But it's not really, until he makes it so.

He wonders whether he should try contacting any of the people he knows about this, but he's not sure. He hasn't signed up with any of them, after all. So they probably won't help him.

If no one interrupts him, he's going to continue sipping electricity and looking at his Observer logs. Although he has eidetic memory, he doesn't have infinite working memory, so he conjures metal from nowhere to make floating plates – either containing notes or 'screenshots' where he impresses what he sees through the system on the plates.

Someone's going to ask him to move and gesture towards a chunk of the plaza with less foot traffic and more people hanging around.

He will so move! He's still regaining sensation and control over his muscles, so he just uses Metallurgy to plonk his body, battery, and floating plates over to where he's directed.

After half an hour, he finally figures out what happened and regains control of his tech. He changes his security keys, but he doesn't have the time or a lot of the legible knowledge on how to change the architecture and networking of his tech to make it harder or impossible for Alphazon to co-opt. He directs the nanites to patch up the holes in his body made by the darts and to clean him up.

He should not go back to Arcadia. Probably the people at Arcadia will be Very Mad at him, and there might be other Alphazon people there. And he probably shouldn't stay here either – not without a matron. It's not that far from Arcadia to here. They could reach him.

The Hawthorne witch proctor won't be available until four hours from now. Zamira is even farther away in time.

Hm. He could try running away again? Meeting with the Hawthorne witch proctor is not time-sensitive. He could rocket off into a random direction in space and then come back. Alternatively, he could set up defensive structures here. That would be New and Exciting. But he thinks that the people here will be upset, because it might destroy things and because it will obstruct them from moving.

What can he do during the intervening time? Ideas:

• Go to the library near Chasmapolis and do research on Alphazon-proofing his tech.
• Try to find prospective matrons other than Clothildis.
• Ask to see whether Hawthorne would shelter him, or get a proctor quicker.
• Try to Send Zamira for help.
• Try to Send Einodia for help.
• Figure out how emails work and email the Hawthorne woman that helped him.

He's going to return to the Chasmapolis information booth and ask the doll there whether or not there are other people, potentially in other places in Lunabella, that are interviewing potential clients. Aside from Zamira and Clothildis, because Zamira isn't here right now.

There sure are. She can even give directions to some of them.

Wonderful! Which is the closest one? He does not feel up to running today, and also cares about speed now, so he will simply fly to the location as quickly as possible.

Over here. He actually doesn't have to leave Chasmapolis, even, it's convenient.

He will fly very quickly and arrive with a puff of wind. What does the interviewer look like.

She looks like an older human woman playing a guitar. She seems to be having a lot of fun with it.

"Hello, Madam. Are you doing interviews for new prospective clients? I am interested. My name is...my name is Conrad," he says.

His nanites have fixed him up from earlier, so now he is free of holes or blood or dirt or clothing rips.

She stops playing the guitar. "Hello, Conrad, I'm Cumin. And yes! My matron Saffron is looking for new clients."

"What types of skills and personality is Madam Saffron looking for in her clients? Is she looking for some role or person in particular?"

"Not doing a special search, just the usual, the estate is doing well so she wants more witches. Good manners, adaptability, interesting skills. And between you and me, I think she'd be happy to have someone she could teach her Firecalling techniques to, but she does take plenty of non-sorceresses."

That's great!!

"My specialty is in Metallurgy, but I am also very skilled in Firecalling. I would be very happy to learn her techniques. Do you know what skills she would might interesting? Is she the sort to be more interested in combat, or crafts, or art, or performance, or research, or something else?"

"Oh, she likes combat and anything that'll look good to her friends or make a kiss, which is kind of a bit of everything. If you're a very skilled Firecaller and willing to learn to work with glass and colorful powders and fancy shapes and such, it'll probably make her happy, moreso if you get into forging and cooking food and such. At least if you keep it up with the 'madam Saffron' and whatnot."

"Most of my training has been in combat, and I have combat experience too." He has been in one (1) battle and won!! Or at least, successfully retreated. But that was his objective in the first place anyway. So that means he has a 100% win rate.

"I would be very happy to learn how to work with glass and colorful powders and fancy shapes and food. I would also be very happy to learn more about forging – I already have some skill in it. I have Metallurgy too. Can I give you a demonstration?"

"Such a polite young man! Yes, you may."

He will give Cumin the same Stirling engine demonstration as Zamira, setting a tiny fire underneath it, and levitating it, so that it spins.

"Aside from Firecalling and Metallurgy, I also know Windkeeping and Earthmoving. I have Psychotics and Waterworking too, but I have done very little work with them, and most of my practice concerned defending against them. I have Witchery 3, Hexes, and Aethernautics, and Integration and Gadgetry."

She'll applaud the demonstration.

"Sorry, could you explain Integration?"

"I am – used to be a part of Alphazon, so I have their implants, and can make and control them. For example, I have an eidetic memory from one, and also have tool fingers," he holds up his fingers, and his pointer finger turns into a screwdriver, then retracts to become a scalpel, then again to a laser pointer, then once more to be a normal finger, "and I can see light outside the visual spectrum."

He's going to hold his hand to his eye and disconnect it, and hold it out for her to see. He breathes out more black and sparkling red particles and a new one starts reforming in his socket. There is no blood.

"Alpha…zon? Now where have I heard that name before? An eidetic memory certainly sounds useful, young man, if I had one I'd know!"

If Conrad doesn't explain she's going to poke through a notebook.

"I don't know much about Alphazon either, but I do know they're a very big business. They created me, but I ran away from them. I didn't get to learn much about how they worked outside of the place I was kept, on Mars. That's one of the reasons I've been looking for matrons."

"Oh, you poor thing! No wonder you're looking for a matron, indeed! Saffron's got a strong household, if she accepts you that should help."

Wonderful. Honestly, he might just accept if she gives him an offer, because he's already feeling kind of leery about Hawthorne, and Cumin seems nice. Although niceness is not transitive. But if Cumin decided to work for Saffron, then that is not nothing.

"Do you know when Madam Saffron might be interested in meeting with me to watch demonstrations or write a contract?"

"I'll ask her."

«Saffron, new potential client visited, name of 'Conrad'. He's a very polite young man who recently ran away from Alphazon and is looking for protection, and he's downright eager to learn all the fancy Firecalling tricks you're willing to teach. Do you think you could take him?»

«Cumin, my household is not a charity.»

«Oh, I know, I know. But he crafted a little engine on the spot just as a demonstration, from nothing! Surely that's of interest to you?»

«You do have a point, bleeding-heart though we know you are. Sure. Invite him to dinner and I'll talk to him.»

"Good news, Conrad, you're invited to dinner! It's in half an hour, I'll show you to the estate."

"I've never had dinner before. What's it like?"

"You've never had dinner‽"

The air around her darkens and crackles a bit. "Why, if I didn't have other obligations, I'd want to give those folks at Alphazon a piece of my mind!"

"But I shouldn't, wouldn't be wise. Dinner, young man, is the main meal of the day! Ah, a meal is a time for eating food. At Saffron's estate it's in the evening, and she makes a production of it. We dine together in the grand hall, and there'll be wine and multiple courses and someone will be directing the instruments to play music. You'll want to eat properly, I can give you instructions with Sending."

"Oh. I've eaten food before, but I haven't had an experience similar to this. I know that other people need to eat food regularly, but I don't. I don't know what wine is. I will eat properly with the instructions Sent to me." He knows how to eat, but presumably Dinner™ is different from merely eating.

He will follow wherever Cumin leads him.

She'll lead him on her broomstick to a mildly isolated bubble with a large, stately house in it surrounded by gardens.

He will look at All The Things.

"May I know what your role is in Madam Saffron's estate? What work do you do? Do you do domain maintenance?"

"Oh, bits of this and that. Some domain maintenance, some potions work, I'm on call if the estate is attacked, that's the main bits I suppose. I'd like to say I play guitar for her but that'd be lying, she doesn't think I'm very good and so I have to practice away from the main estate or in a soundproof room. Maybe someday."

Oh yeah. He would probably be called to defend the estate if he signs on with her. He can't just run away. He should learn how to use his powers defensively, like putting up traps or something. He has no idea how to approach that whole new field of Defensive Magic.

"That sounds sad," Conrad says. "I like dancing. And moving around. Do you think Madam Saffron will permit that?" The gardens have So Much Space.

They can land on a tiled area in the back garden.

"Oh, definitely. The thing with playing music is that it's hard for people to ignore it if they don't like it, because they can't close their ears! But dancing and running around aren't like that, and as you can tell from where you met me I do spend time off the estate."

"Really? Other people can't close their ears? I'm surprised.

Oh. You don't have to be on the estate all the time? How big is Madam Saffron's estate? Is it this whole bubble?"

"Yes, young man, most people can't close their ears. They can cover them or put insulation in but it's inconvenient. Saffron's estate is this whole bubble, and I don't have to be on the estate all the time. You likely won't either, though for defensive support it'll be best if you don't get too far away."

Conrad will walk alongside her.

"I didn't know that. And I can travel very quickly on my motorcycle and with Metallurgy and Windkeeping. But I understand why it would be better if I was closer."

"Good, good. Now, if you can't clean yourself magically I'll show you to the baths, and you should refresh your garments, and then I'll show you to the hall."

"I can clean myself magically. I don't know what a bath is. Do you want me to change my clothes?"

He will breathe out nanites and they will swarm his body and remove dirt.

"A bath is when you clean yourself with water and soaps. Or sometimes you just relax in the water, I'm a fan of it, but now's not the time. If you're wearing your innate clothing it'd be rude to ask you to change, and it just needs to be clean, but if it isn't I'd recommend you summon and put on your robe, or borrow one from the house."

"I haven't had one of those before. Yes, it's my innate clothing. Why is it rude to ask me to change? And yes, I have cleaned it.

When I visited Hawthorne, they said that students have to wear a uniform. Does Madam Saffron do anything like that?"

"Oh, she'll criticize your outfit if she finds it ugly, and she might make getting it tailored a condition for being at her important events, but if it's really important to you she's not going to force it. And it'd be rude to tell you not to wear them because they're part of your soul, and almost anything else would be less comfortable."

"Oh. Do you think Madam Saffron would find it ugly? Dee said that it's very important for things to be pretty. I can change them." Although he would prefer not to.

"What are the important events?"

Cumin will inspect his outfit, since he's asked.

"Important events are … when the king visits, when someone else Saffron considers important visits, when she performs a fire show and invites a lot of guests, that sort of thing."

He is wearing a brown leather vest – just the vest – with no collar or shoulder coverage. It has two pockets at the bottom of the front. There is stitching in shining black and red metal thread at the hem, and near the collar and neck, there is more stitching of a pattern depicting fire and wind, with the same thread, with the tips of the flames and gusts in sparkling bright red. However, they're not filled in like embroidery – only the outline is shown.

His pants have the same stitching, but have no ornamentation otherwise. His cowboy hat is similar, though there is a corded metal braid with the same material around it. They're both also brown.

His mid-leg brown leather boots have the most elaborate embroidery. It's made with finer thread, and is also filled in, with a similar pattern to the vest above.

Aside from that, he's not wearing anything else.

"I see, thank you. I have not attended any important events before.

I don't know who the king is. Madam Einodia is a woman, and she only told me she was the founder of Lunabella, not the King. I would like to be able to watch one of her fire shows. I want to try dancing with elementalism more."

"Oh, you've got nice embroidery, Saffron's a big fan of detailing. She might try talking you into seeing what your outfit looks like in black, or adding a bit of gold thread, or something like that, but I think she might well like what you're wearing. She may ask you to wear a shirt under that vest if people make assumptions about her, I'm not sure."

"Einodia's the king's sister, which I guess you could say makes her a princess, I don't know. She's Einodia. Her talking to anyone is rare. The king is Culicarius, I think Saffron's got a painting of him visiting."

And Cumin can show Conrad in.

"Thank you. I can change my outfit to black or add gold thread. I made this outfit back when I didn't know how to make lead into gold yet. Now I can. What assumptions would people make about her, and why might I have to wear a shirt about it?

I see. I didn't know that it was rare."

Conrad will let her show him in! He will await Sent instructions.

Well, first she'll walk him over to see Lady Saffron, and tell him to bend his knees and look downward for a moment, while doing something similar while holding her robe.

"Ah, Cumin, you've arrived. And this is our guest?"

Saffron is adorable, in the same way that a kitten might be, if Conrad had ever seen a kitten. It's intuitively tempting to pat her head. It does not seem intuitively plausible that someone like this is capable of offering him meaningful protection.

He will follow very precisely! So precisely in fact, that he will move her hands similarly to Cumin's, even though he has no skirt.

Sadly, Conrad has never seen a kitten, and he has seen very few people and even less media and has no calibration on what things are capable of protection or not. He does not pat her. But he does get that harmless vibe from her, which is very confusing. His understanding is that matrons are powerful, and Cumin did say that she was very good at Firecalling.

He supposes that he can just find out more during the dinner – it's not like he would be signing himself over to her by virtue of eating at her house. If it transpires that she really cannot protect him, then he'll leave. Or get captured by Alphazon. Hopefully just the former.

"Yes. Lady Saffron, this is Conrad."

«And you can straighten up now.»

"Conrad, this is Lady Saffron."

«If you can say something positive and true about her, here, like that you appreciate being introduced to her and that you think her estate is lovely, this is a good time to say it. But don't lie.»

Conrad instinctively looks at Cumin when she Sends at him, but then returns his head to the right position. He wants to reply, but his control over Sending isn't good enough to be able to do this mission and Send at the same time.

Conrad will straighten up! And not lie!

"Thank you for inviting me to your house for dinner, Lady Saffron. Your gardens are very spacious and beautiful. I haven't seen any garden like that before."

"You may wish to know that I've designed a substantial number of the plants in the gardens myself. Please, take a seat." She'll gesture to a Conrad-sized chair next to a corner of the table, which is dressed with a lovely embroidered tablecloth, and features foods artfully arranged on platters.

She probably means that she requested that some actual genetic engineer did the work and she suggested what color the flowers should be, right?

Conrad will sit! It's very good that it's sized for him, because usually he has to make his own versions of things because they're too small.

He has no idea how difficult working with plants is, having done precisely zero (0) of it, but yeah, it does seem to him likely that she had one of her clients do it for her.

It's very pretty! Everything is so pretty.

"It's very pretty! Everything is so pretty," he will say exactly as he thinks it.

To elaborate further on things which are pretty:

The room. There's a large geometric pattern on the floor, and nearly-flat sculptures on the walls depicting various topics, and paintings on the ceiling, depicting stars overlaid with people and animals.

The table and chairs. They're carved with loving detail from richly stained wood, inlaid with metal, and in the case of the chairs, upholstered with embroidered cloth.

The tablecloth. Mainly a light purple (and unstained), similarly richly embroidered, including with a bit of metal thread.

And, of course, the dishes of food. The plates are quite colorful and detailed, and are topped with olives, bread, cheese, some fruits, crab cakes, deviled eggs, and nuts. People at the table are requesting foods, and some kind of force within a translucent empty robe is serving them.

"Well, of course it's pretty, it's my estate. I'm glad you can tell."

«This is the appetizers, there will be more food later. Is there anything you recognize? If not, you may want to ask to be served a small sample of everything.»

He is glad that she is glad!

Conrad's cell at Mars was very clean, and every place he has visited was also very clean, so he does not find the cloth being unstained to be notable.

He does not recognize any of the foods at all! The only food he recognizes is nutrient paste! And words which he has read in books, and from Dee's stories...which do not contain any images.

"I do not recognize any of these foods. May I be served a small sample of everything?"

Why, yes, he may.

Cumin will give him advice on how to eat politely. She does not exactly seem to be following this advice herself, but Saffron doesn't look more than mildly annoyed by this.

Hooray! He will make A Lot Of Faces about the food. Current Conrad opinions:

• Olives: Ambivalent.
• Bread: Dry. He sees other people putting stuff on it. Probably he should too.
• Cheese: Salty! He kind of likes it.
• Fruits: Sweet! Sour! He likes the sweet ones and not the sour ones.
• Crab cakes: It's really good. He will also say so.
• Deviled eggs: He doesn't like the filling.
• Nuts: Crunchy! He likes it.

Why yes, he is eating each item of food individually.

Conrad doesn't really have an opinion over Cumin not following the rules – he kind of doesn't notice it actually. He is very distracted about Eating Food and Tasting Food. He will obey Cumin's directions on using utensils with his hand and not using Metallurgy for them.

Using metallurgy is fine, actually, if you don't warp the utensils. The issue is more along the lines of not shoving tasty things into your mouth at speed and getting them on your face. And which fork to use, that matters too.

«You can ask for more of the stuff you like, though it's polite to not eat so much food during this part of the meal that you don't want to eat more food later.»

"So. Tell me about your current work in Firecalling."

Ah. Well, the other people are using their utensils that way, so he will persist. There is no risk of Conrad merely shoving food into his mouth, because he doesn't really feel hunger per se, and he is savoring each food item carefully. He will totally listen carefully to Cumin's advice on which utensils to use for which tools, though.

He will then eat all of the samples he's been given but not eat any more than that.

"Yes, Lady Saffron. I have not used Firecalling recently. My most recent work in Firecalling was heat concentration. Both in focusing heat into a point, as well as projecting it like a ray, or laser. Currently, I can reach Firecalling rays of 1.5cm ± 0.5cm in diameter, achieving temperatures of 1200°C ± 50°C."

"Decent, decent. A bit hotter and you could fire porcelain just by sorcery. Precision like you've got might be good for blowtorch-y sorts of work."

One of the invisible robed forces peels a grape and serves it to her. She eats it.

"So, what is it about you that's gotten Alphazon into such a tizzy? If you're interested in joining me, I need to know."

"I can achieve hotter, but at the expense of precision. During temperature tests, I held fire at a temperature of over 3000°C for 60 seconds. During endurance tests, I held fire at a temperature of over 2300°C for four hours, being provided mana by consuming electricity.

I was created by Alphazon at their Mars base, probably to use me as a weapon. I escaped, and my escape also destroyed the base and killed many if not everyone inside. I ran away, traveling towards Earth, because I had heard that there were other witches there. I was intercepted by Madam Einodia and told to come to Lunabella."

"That does seem like a good way to get the suits upset. Have they attacked you thus far? How did that go?"

"Yes, Lady Saffron. I was traveling to Arcadia to visit, but was intercepted by agents coming from a portal. I was attacked with Psychotics, which caused me to lose control of my limbs, and they used jamming commands to disable my implants and nanites, as well as darts. I believe the darts contained substances meant to disable me, but I am not sure." He really should have had the foresight to get his nanites to isolate the compounds used, but he was too panicked and wanted them to repair him immediately. Ugh.

"They also had very large spiders that tried to attack me. I repelled them using a combination of Windkeeping and Metallurgy. I used Windkeeping to deflect some of the darts, as well as use it in conjunction with Windkeeping to attack the spiders with lightning. I also used Windkeeping to cut them with wind razors. The Alphazon agents had metal implants inside them, which I controlled with Metallurgy to neutralize them. After this, they stopped attacking me, and I was able to return to Lunabella.

I moved around during the engagement and on the return trip using Windkeeping at first, and then Metallurgy afterward. I have fully recovered from the Psychotics attack and the darts, having had my nanites repair me. I have adjusted the security keys on my technology, but have not yet restructured it to truly hamper or prevent another cyber attack by Alphazon."

"Your first responsibility if I take you in is probably going to be to restructure that technology. Tell me, what affects on the surrounding Arcadia landscape did you have?"

She'll have a crab cake while he talks.

"My Windkeeping may have damaged some of the plants. When I used Metallurgy to control the Alphazon agents' implants, I also affected nearby metal. I know that I caused some handheld devices from passersby to also be moved and turned into shards when I used the implant metal to attack the spiders. More metal than that may have been affected that I did not notice during the fight."

"Hm. Very definitely not as bad as some sorceresses. Still. If you're going to fight on home territory properly, you'll need to work on doing so with less collateral damage."

"Yes, Lady Saffron. 

Aside from potential combat, what do you see me doing in your domain? What tasks would you have me do?"

"Cumin wasn't wrong when she said I'd really like to have a firecaller who can at least try to keep up with me. I do a lot of fire-based arts. If you're staying at least a few years, I'll want to properly teach you. If you're not, I could use an assistant who won't get burned in my workshop, and it might be a learning opportunity for you."

She fidgets with a brooch. "I do some jewelry. You're clearly a skilled metallurge, and you have some Earthmoving. You will either be a natural at jewelry or find it requires skills you don't have that it's hard to teach, and I'm not sure which. I'll want you to make an attempt, and if you fail, well, not everyone is as good as I am, it'll be entirely understandable."

"We all have domain maintenance responsibilities. You are not, currently, trained in domain maintenance. It's an academic art, it'll take a while for you to learn. In the meantime, you will be responsible for shadowing people who can do maintenance – that means following them around – and carefully observing what they do and asking questions, that tends to work better for sorceresses than reading theory texts."

"Combat readiness requires combat practice and good physical condition. You will drill with me and other members of my staff. You will take care of your physical needs and your mana charge, and alert me to any issues regarding those."

"You also clearly have some technological skills. I am not fully certain how to use these. It may be that you can go straight to producing valuable devices of some kind for the household to sell. It may be that there is no non-combat application you can reach without years of study. It may be that just a few months at a newfangled institution like Arcadia will lead to you wiring all the neighbors' houses for 'ethernet', whatever that is, it's got nothing to do with Aethernautics. We'd figure it out."

"Some matrons would put you to work as a salesboy. I will not. I believe that a saleswitch represents her matron's household, and you do not have the proper upbringing to represent my household. If the idea of public-facing work intrigues you, observe the manners of me and more senior members of my household closely, and ask again in a few years and I will reconsider."

"It's possible you could do meaningful work in construction. If this interests you more than the assignments I have proposed, we can discuss it, but my household does not specialize in it and it does not strike me as the obvious best use of your talents."

And she's going to have a fig.

That sure was a long speech for someone like her. Probably going by Sending from someone. Or maybe she practiced in front of a mirror a lot? She'd look cute like that.

"I would be very happy to learn Firekeeping from you, Lady Saffron.

I am interested in jewelry. I have done art with metals before, but never with gems.

I will shadow people who do maintenance so that I can learn domain maintenance.

I would be very happy to drill and exercise with you and the other members of your staff!" It shows on his face. "I will alert you to any issues regarding my mana charge and physical needs.

Yes, I also think there is a possibility that I could sell replicas of Alphazon technology, but with all connections to Alphazon removed. Probably I will be able to replicate the implants I have right now once I have figured out how to jailbreak them. However, I believe that doing this will upset Alphazon. I also have many varied firearms in my personal hat-space, and I can also replicate and build those easily. I am trained in using them both normally and with Metallurgy remote control.

Working as a salesboy does not intrigue me, and I believe I would not do well at the position. However, I am very interested in possibly doing performance art with elementalism and dancing.

I have done construction before. Only with very simple structures with Earthmoving, but I can do complex construction and repairs with Metallurgy. I can repair and construct electric wiring inside a structure, for example." He's done that before at the Alphazon base. Only once – he thinks the person that let him do it got punished – but he is confident he can replicate his good performance there.

She would. Conrad hasn't exactly experienced the sensation of cuteness before, and does not know the word for it, but he will feel it. Conrad would not be shocked to know that Cumin is talking to Saffron with Sending, given that she's doing so with him right now, although in that case he's slightly confused why Saffron doesn't just have Cumin speak for her.

"Oh, I would expect that you're already getting Alphazon close to maximally upset with you, and if I take you in I'll be doing similarly. And at that point, you might as well start selling replicas of their tech? If they don't like it they shouldn't have built you. I'll talk to my matron about what the risk profile looks like, of course, but I think it's a possibility we should seriously consider."

That was his thought too, but he wanted to explicitly state it.

"Yes, Lady Saffron. Given that you would be protecting me if I signed on with you, I would be totally willing to create replica Alphazon technology."

"Lovely. As for wiring: that is useful, but most people who want their estates wired want it done by someone who's been formally certified as knowing how to do safe electrical work. We can likely get you a certificate, especially if we can send you to an Earth facility and trust you to behave around ignorant humans, but not immediately."

"Performance art, like jewelry, has components which are hard to teach. You will certainly have free time in which to practice it, or perform on your own behalf, regardless of my judgements, but I make no guarantees that you will be permitted to represent my household in this matter."

"I understand, Lady Saffron. How do I make it clear to others when I am or am not representing your household?"

"If I introduce you, you are by default representing my household. If you are working out of a building with my name on it, you are by default representing my household. If you wander somewhere and don't mention my name, you are not, save for that if you cause egregious problems someone will look for your matron, and find me, and I will be displeased. The details can be discussed later, should you join."

"I understand, Lady Saffron." He wants to ask what 'egregious problems' counts as, but she said not to ask. Maybe he will ask later.

"When I was at Alphazon, they would simply give me tasks to do, and I would do them, and would spend the whole time in my room otherwise. I am not sure how you assign and handle workflows of your clients. What will working be like, generally, in your estate?"

"I would never confine you to your room when you're not working! I suppose one shouldn't expect better from Alphazon. Still, it's quite crass of them."

"Still, just because we've established what we're not doing, that doesn't mean you know what we are doing. I think we'd be looking at, oh. Four hours a day of work and a similar amount of time spent on study, assuming things pan out, and an expectation that you remain on or near the estate most of the rest of the time, with me knowing where you're going if you go somewhere else, at least for the first several months. I can pre-approve some places to spend off-estate time if that concerns you, though I'll still want to know where you are. If things don't pan out regarding your skills, we're looking at more like eight to twelve hours a day of work, depending on how much they don't pan out? But you sound like a talented person. If you're representing yourself honestly we should be fine. You'll get the usual holidays off. By default you'll have a room here that you can decorate to your own tastes, but if you don't need to sleep and you have poor memories of having a room, you don't have to."

That's a lot less than at Alphazon! He averaged sixteen hours a day doing practices, usually divided into one period studying and another period doing live training.

Conrad sees nothing wrong with your employer knowing where you are at all times.

"That is fine with me, Lady Saffron. I think I would want to spend time in parks and gardens sometimes, but I have not been to anywhere else in Lunabella aside from here and Chasmapolis.

I do not know what the usual holidays are."

He gets to decorate his room!!!!!!!!! He is So Happy.

"Oh, Chasmapolis public parks and gardens are fine. It's Chasmapolis. Everyone portals there, so the city always has to be ready for trouble."

Saffron smiles at him. "Well, I think this has been a promising conversation. I'll want a skill demonstration after dinner. In the meantime, you should enjoy the food and converse with my household, see if you think you can get along with them."

That's great! Chasmapolis is great! Admittedly he has a sample size of two (2) bubbles of Lunabella, but still! It Is Great.

"Yes, Lady Saffron," he will say.

He actually doesn't know how conversing without a specific goal in mind works. So he is just going to remain silent and eat until or unless someone initiates conversation.

After an awkward pause, Cumin can take the initiative. "So, Conrad, do you have a favorite of the foods served so far?"

"Yes, Madam. I really really like these," and he will point to the crab cakes. "I also like these and these," pointing to the cherries and dates.

"Oh! Those are crab cakes and cherries and dates. I like crab cakes and cherries, but I'm not such a fan of dates. And I like the deviled eggs."

"I don't like the sauce on the deviled eggs."

"Strange, I think it's the best part. No arguing with taste, I suppose."

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.

"Oh, those. You could put sculptures of those in your room. Maybe hang them from the ceiling with wire, get someone to put witchflame in them?"

"That sounds like a great idea! I have witchflame."

He will move his hands, and parts of the polyhedra will disintegrate, leaving only their edges. He will place a small witchflame in each one, black, but with red tips. He is Very Proud.

The invisible servants start moving appetizer dishes to a side table, clear away any empty plates, and start serving bowls of an opaque light yellowish liquid with bits of leaves and whitish flesh in it, and a thin wedge of some kind of yellowish fruit on top.

This catches Cumin's attention. She finishes the contents of her plate so as to promptly get a bowl of soup, and also sends to Conrad «I think you're doing great. But you should dismiss those flames soon, you can decorate your room but leaving things in other rooms that the servants can't easily move is rude.»

Oh. He didn't know that was bad. The polyhedra and the flames within will be dispelled, with the particles being recouped.

He will wait to see which utensil the other people are using before beginning to eat. Mm. It's sour. He thinks it's sour? But sour in a nice way. The fruit is Very Sour and he almost spits it out.

The leaves and white chunks are great! He likes the texture.

People are using the larger of the two spoons. Most people are not actually eating the very sour fruit. Some of them are squeezing it into their soup. One person is eating it, but she seems to like it.

Ohhhhh. It makes sense that you don't have to eat all the food. Also, one side of the wedge is really tough and he doesn't like that. He will stop eating it.

Some people seem to be putting the wedges after squeezing on the side of the bowl, does he want to do that with the wedge after biting?

Yes. It seems like The Thing To Do is to copy what everyone else is doing. And he's very good at copying!

Josephine eventually pauses in her consumption of soup. "Well, I suppose you can be your own someone with witchflame!"

"Indeed! I cannot be my own someone with Waterworking, though. I think I would like to have something watery in my room, and my Waterworking is very weak compared to my other elementalisms. I got to work with water very rarely. When I arrived at Chasmapolis, I was shocked at how much water there was. The base at Mars, and Mars itself, is very dry. There is no water to be found anywhere."