Flower shop. Hardware store. Nail salon. Sickeningly cute café. And then, squeezed in between that and a massage parlor, a shop that looks much older and weirder than its surroundings - gnarled wood instead of cement and paint, moss and some other small plants growing directly out of the side of the wall, smoky windows, sign impossible to read.

Well. It's not a miracle. But it is interesting. He tries the door.

It's full of weird things - taxidermy and lovely fantasy maps and dried plants and art glass and a huge orrery that might be trying to represent the Firefly setting or something because it's sure not the Solar System and funny clockwork kinetic sculptures and a columnar enclosure full of weirdly giant butterflies and fancy rugs and furniture so eclectic it would strike a typical interior designer dead on the spot.

"Gooooood morning," says a voice belonging to a woman who is simultaneously much too young and definitely weird enough to belong to this shop. She looks like she's maybe twenty, if that, and she is dressed as a witch, black robes and pointy hat and all. She's propped up on her elbows on the counter in the shop, one hand idly spinning some kind of armillary sphere around.

"Good morning," he replies admiringly, while admiring the oddments. "What's the ratio of merchandise to scenery, here?"

"Oh, I might sell most any of my scenery, for the right prices, to the right persons. But mostly it is here in the first place because I thought it terribly snazzy. Come here, you, let me grab a look at you, see how right a person you might be."

He steps up and leans on the counter himself, presenting himself at a favorable angle. This is intriguing, at the very least.

"Oh now, aren't you just right. I think," she says, catching one of his hands in hers, "that you," her hands go clawed and fluffy, "are exactly right." She whisks her hat off and her ears become long tall rabbity ones. "What would just-right you say, I wonder, if I told you you're a witch, waiting to happen?"

"Better late than never?" he proposes, a bit giddy. "What in the hell am I waiting for and will it happen in the next five minutes, perhaps?"

"Ha!" She wags a finger, human-shaped again, in his face. "Yes it will! Some people come over all witchy without any of the external help if something very terrible should befall them. Perhaps your life has been too charmed. But I can charm it the rest of the way. You are beholding a witch awakener." She takes a bow. The ears are still there and one bops him on the head.

"If my life has been charmed 'til now by all means let's set it awry. Do I need to do anything in particular, to awaken? Or just let you batter me with your ears?"

"That is a gratis bonus entirely unrelated." She puts her ears back in human form. Collects his other hand. "Let's see what it is you have got."

And he is elsewhere, a void populated by colorful sparkles.

"What is it you wish to look at first? Whether you will have your own set of glamorous ears? Whether you will be studying in a dusty library or running errands for gods or shooting lightning at the target range? Whether you want to keep being such a boy all the time?"

"Hmm. I'll admit I'd rather my ears weren't quite so glamorous as your own, they'd risk overshadowing me. Where does that lead us?"

"Over this-a-way!" A particular cluster of sparkles. "Interesting ancestry. I suppose they are all interesting. Never have I ever seen someone who comes in looking like a human and the this part is saying 'whoops, all elves'. They will tell you about themselves if you poke them, nothing final till you are all done."

"Perhaps someone chose to hide my light under a bushel?"

He begins poking. Starting with the one that smells like burning; it's a nostalgic kind of smell.

"Ifrit! Fire spirit. Being on fire at all times. Never again the chicken soup with rice, eat only through burning - acceptable to burn crisps and baguettes too, though. Get mana that way too. Can still sit in chairs and shake hands. Unless you do the this thing," magical mental gesture, "and become Mr. Rocket Skull sometimes. Those cannot shake hands. Because of being rocket skulls."

"Burning forever... there's an appeal. What about these?" Mental flick of the wrist at the two that feel like hurting someone and getting off on it, respectively.

"Erinyes! Fallen angel dealie. Perpetual running mascara look, and black feather wings. Mana from torment especially screamy kinds. Find a certain special friend or take up dentisting or become supervillainous, different options popular at different eras. Extra thing does complicated nonsense with putting your blood on a weapon and stabbing people. And this one is Lilin, demony looking folks. Breaking rules while someone is watching for mana. Has to be a rule to you though, no eating cheeseburger dinners about it if you are not Jewish. Bonus thing about hassling other people's dreams."

Erinyes sounds like fun but he should check other options first... Lilin sounds thematically pleasant but he doesn't have rules, so that's a bust.

He traces his mental fingers over two more. One of them feels strange, fake, like something that shouldn't be real; the other, like skin, but... ah, not just any skin. What kind of magic feels like the inside of - well. He can ask.

"What about these?"

"That's the one which makes you a child! Changeling. Very good shapeshifters but stuck at 'child'. Mana from identity theft but discount on magic that lets you get it some more convenient way. Bonus thing is better shapeshifting. And that one is nymph! Solid choice, girlfriend is a nymph. Water fey sort of situation, mana from people wanting them or what they have on offer. Go into advertising or just be pretty at people. Bonus is a quite good mana storage thing with imbued water."

Being an eternal child and fucking with people about it sounds hilarious but not like a life choice. Being a nymph... hmm.

"The nymph bit is just people wanting me, not me wanting them? I've got one of those boutique sexualities that's less reliable than anyone would like."

(It's the easiest way he can find to explain something that approximates the truth. He can fuck anything that moves, and does whenever it seems helpful, but the ones he wants are the ones who he can hurt - not with whips and chains but with a glance at their stomach, a seemingly careless word to the wrong person, showing up at their workplace to deliver a chocolate croissant and leaving everyone asking how do you know him? And after a while it stops being nearly so fun. Boutique, indeed.)

"That's right! Fortunately the mentioned girlfriend is stunning gorgeous, charges up walking down the street or snapping a chat. But I digress."

"How lucky for her."

He points at another two stars, this time more or less at random; he's starting to run out of new ones. "What about these?"

"That one is lamia. Swallowing folks whole for mana - needs a soul, so generally not the family dog. They can sometimes be all right afterward apart from knowing forever they are technically vomit. You trade everything waist down for most of a snake. Bonus is for getting extra magic from eating a witch. Other one is orc; they get mana for having children so many many people have a little orc. In their heritage. Not at home eating pureed peas. Usually. Bonus makes you keep going like a video game character even if totally messed up."

"Wow. They can't all be winners."

...that one, that one smells like blood. He points at it and the two next to it, the bland one and the shiny one. "Run me through those three?"

"Empusa! Basically vampire. Mana from vampiring folks. Animals do work for this one but not as good; also there is this botanical option from the moon. Bonus for superspeed and superstrength - extra on top of the regular amount - plus seeing in the dark and also for being mist. Fog. Not noticed missing. Then neutral, which is being a regular human pretty much. Not this exact regular human, you can change a bunch of things and will also be a girl most likely, but regular human. Actually, empusa lets you change less but will still make you a girl... Mana from sleep. Perk for being a little magically tougher and getting to have some of a second one of those -" the class sparks. "And then daeva, which is irregular human. Tall cartoon superhero looking deal. Mana from people around them having emotions, lots of people about whatever or fewer people about them specifically. Perk for controlling your body, doing the monk thing of making your heart beat very slowly and being warm in the snow and all that."

He likes blood fine, but needing to drink gallons on gallons of it to live sounds dull. Daeva... there's potential there.

"And then - ah, only one left? What's that one."

"Mimi! It would give you your own fabulous ears, I am a similar thing called an oread, let's see... ah, must be at least two mimis up the family tree, you could have no ears at all and be a snake one or some ears as a rat mimi. You get some traits from your animal, like fitting into spaces of exceeding tininess or something. Perk gets more traits and they can be more mythological sorts of things if you wish to be the snake that can make people eat bad idea fruit. Fastest charging method of anybody! Just need another person to pat you on the earless head or give backscratches or something like that."

Tom nods along for much of this.

When she reaches the bit about him requiring physical affection for his magic to work, he looks like he might bite her, for just a moment, before he schools his expression to one of mere disgust.*

"No," he says, succinctly.

*Of course, their conversation taking place in a metaphorical representation of a non-physical plane, none of this is actually conveyed via facial expression. But the flickering of his aura is pretty vehement.

"Ah, to each her own! Which ones do you want to hear more about?"

He wrenches himself back to his easy smile. "Hmm... Ifrit sounded good but doesn't sound good enough to be a finalist. Erinyes is tempting; Lilin isn't particularly, ironically enough. Changeling sounds like a lark but not a lifestyle. Nymph is a strong candidate. Lamia and Orc are nonsense. Empusa and Neutral are dull, Daeva is a contender." He only twitches slightly thinking about Mimi. "So let's get the details on Erinyes, Nymph, and Daeva."

"Erinyes are wind and blood affinity - that's transmuting and necromancy and summoning demons and being Storm of X-Men; don't get older than somewhere between eighteen and twenty-six - most witch types do something like this - and if they die anyway they pop up again in a new host body somewhere, though that is put off if they are ritually sacrificed in one of the ritually sacrificing people ways and then they come back a hundred years after instead. Their pain thing charges fast but they only hold a middle-of-road amount of mana at one time. And, anyone physically harming an erinyes spends the next day like the erinyes is their voodoo doll, scratched where the erinyes is scratched and bleeding how they bleed and suchlike. That's the thing with the bonus curse bit - it's a complicated business with getting erinyes blood on a sharp thing while there is a voodoo in play and then putting a permanent pain curse with a spooky scar on the cursed person.

"Nymphs are water and life affinity, for waterbending and portals and alchemy and divination and being Poison Ivy with the plants; they charge fast but without the special bonus thing stuff do not hold much. They have lovely soft scales, and finny horn things, and the horns let them sense what people want. In concept they age a decade per year fast but they wash it off down to eighteen in the shower so it does not much matter. Don't need to eat, but magicify water to make it very yummy and nutritious to drink. Back to life if dead with True Love's Kiss or that kind of thing. The mana draw is by how much people want you or what you tempt them with and how close they are, so, flirting in person better than over text, high-touch sales better than car commercial. Storage perk lets you save mana in your hot tub or make it into mana potions and keeping those on you skips the aging fast thing. Also, bonus affinity, mind, gets you being a psychic who makes headaches happen and curses on top. - you can put points in a magic without affinity but you will run out of points soon if you do it a lot.

"Daeva! Beauteous ubermenschen, tall and strong and untiring and really good complexion and all this jazz. Affinity for body and life, gets you alchemy and transmutation and portals and divination. Charge up going to a football game or on lovely dates, medium capacity but nice and quick. Perk lets you do without air for weeks, perfect birth control and making sure the babies are witches or blondes to have more fun or what have you. Not one of the more interesting but certainly pretty."

"Hm... I am awfully tempted by Erinyes. Do you think people would be too very terrified of me if I took up the way of wings and runny mascara?"

"Well, you don't have to tell them you picked it, if you don't mention meeting me, nor let on if you are not planning a dentist career. But still some yes."

"I think I'd rather moonlight as a dom than a dentist," he muses. (This is true, though irrelevant to his life plans.) "And I can take a bit of squinting, I just don't want torches and pitchforks when I stroll down the street."

"Not much of that, some people have no choice. Oh, also you don't have to make your own mana. You can buy some."

"But isn't self-reliance a virtue? - it's a fair point and I'll keep it in mind if the chains and whips cease to delight me. But, yes, Erinyes for now, with no bonus; what's next? You mentioned tossing lightning bolts on a firing range?"

"Mm-hm! These are," she reorients their view to the cluster of three, "Sorceress, Academic, and Warlock. Sorceresses practice, Academics study, Warlocks curry favor. Sorceresses get affinity for all the elementalisms plus cool familiar-having magic. Academics get affinity for alchemy runes aethernautics portals witchery. Warlocks get bonus magical loot and affinity for curses, transmutation ay-kay-ay hexes, necromancy, consortation ay-kay-ay demon summoning, and divination, and can grow most fast, but must have a boss - you can see who makes you an offer here -" More sparkles.

We've got Hecate, goddess of magic, who approves of his sheer enthusiasm. Chernobog, a devil lord who likes the cut of his jib. The Egyptian god Setcheh, snakey guy. Lupe, Achos, and Ania as a collective (the Algaea, personifications of suffering, "pain" "grief" and "sorrow" respectively) who make offers to most voluntary erinyes. An angel called Chanabiel who thinks she can fix him. Ogmios, Celtic psychopomp and god of eloquence. And some random gods of rivers and forests and places he has probably ever been to who are presumably not spoiled for choice.

He really wasn't expecting to be tempted. Having a master is a mistake he has no intention of making. Chernobog, Hecate, Ogmios, they can all fuck off back to the pits they came from; they're appealing which means they think they know him which means they want something.

But Chanabiel. Chanabiel wants to fix him.

He remembers the first girl who thought she could fix him. It was an accident, that time; she'd seen how he acted, a bitey little secondary-schooler without the masking skills God gave to a rattlesnake, and she with her church-regulation plaits had thought she could save his soul. She came to him, and she said I want to be your friend, and she'd smiled at him, and he'd asked what her angle was, and she'd told him, not in so many words, that he was pretty but he was bad, and that she was going to fix him up 'til she could marry him when they grew up. And he'd thought -

what if I fix you instead?

And they'd become friends. He really did clean himself up, and he had her to thank. He watched how she ate, how she played, how she talked. He learned how people do. And in return he taught her how he did. He acted like he'd leave if she didn't play fair, didn't give as much as she took. She wanted him to dress nicer? He wanted her to stop dressing so nice, would God hate her if she wore her hair straight? She wanted him to come to supper with her family? He wanted her to smoke with him, just a bit, just to see what it's like. She wanted him to date her? Guess what he wanted.

He knew, now, he'd had an easy tutorial with her. She was sheltered, told all her life about the bright lines you never crossed. Once someone like that crossed a line they started wondering about others. And as long as she saw him getting nicer, getting neater, getting sweeter, what was it to her that she might be losing ground? Maybe they'd meet in the middle.

They'd met far from the middle. She got to the middle and he started dragging her back down with him, and she'd sunk so much into the project of Tom Riddle that she couldn't get out, not now, not with her church friends not speaking with her and her family poised to tell her they'd told her so. And she sank, and he flew.

And maybe he could do it to an angel.

"What happens," he wonders, rubbing his fingers against Chanabiel's soft light, "if your patron becomes... indisposed. Towards you or in general."

"If this happens before you hit your power cap? No more errands, no more power. Afterwards I think nothing specialer than your McDonalds boss kicking a bucket. Your power cap is quite high though, you are looking at years and years of magical milk runs and witchy drycleaning pickups."

...not worth it, then. Not worth it at all. Not even in the name of sullying an angel.

"I don't know my preference between Sorceress and Academic without more context on the magics on offer - well, a slight preference for Academic just off the names, but nothing to write home about. Should those magics be next?"

"Sure! Academics get a point of power for about forty hours divided in big chunks studying the dusty tomes and drafting the arcane charts and all this - not too slow if you have no life but if you do, hoo boy. Can for similar time investment but not spending power points get a couple schools of magic, pick something expensive about it. By comparison you are starting with thirty, topping out at a hundred, but can load up on magical fate ballast to boost one time only today. Double duration on things like potions, runes, portals, that you use or make. Some most popular wild magic are academic-friendly like the one that gives invisible servants or the levitating one.

"Sorceresses practice. Start out four times faster than academics, spend an hour a day putting fireballs through an obstacle course or what have you. Favorite wild magic that likes sorceresses is one for not needing sleep and one for being more than one species in most ways. Sorceresses get affinity for all elementalisms, earth air fire water nature psychic metal - no one else can collect-them-all with the elementalisms without doing annoying difficult things - and also having a familiar. Put your soul color, that is this silvery green apparently, into your elementalism to hit harder and reach farther with it, super scary when kicking monster ass. I am a sorceress my own self."

"Either way, watch out, cashing in work for power points gets pricier when it is this way and not from quests, you want to make great big buys all at once so might not see the rest of your power for a couple years if carefully budgeting. Then again, immortality, so what really is a couple years?"

"Hm. I don't know, Sorceress sounds nice and powerful but I'm sure anyone who fails to be just as dangerous with an Academic bent lacks imagination... I don't mind dusty tomes or obstacle courses though tomes sound like they'd teach me things at the same time... on the other hand an hour a day of activity would keep me nicely trim... I'm not too worried about a few years one way or the other but I admit that reverse-exponential growth is aesthetically irritating, it's a pity I can't go moonlighting as a Warlock while Sorcering or Academing most of the way..."

"Can, actually - if you are a Neutral, perk for that lets you do two growth methods. Still have to pick a thing to really be but pick up power points either which way. Can be two things, like so - or three if you buy it twice -" Point.

"...oh. Huh."

He looks at that thing she was pointing at.

"It's pretty expensive just to be slightly more boring, but... there are advantages to containing multitudes, aren't there. People don't know what to expect from you."

"You could be so surprising, yes."

"And I could serve in Heaven... or, well, serve Heaven, which I'm sure is just as good. Without the risk factor of being deemed unworthy, and thereby well and truly fucked."

And he's never been good at resisting temptation.

He starts grabbing stars. "Alright, we'll call that the tentative plan - I want to be an Erinyes-and-Neutral-and-Nymph, with the Neutral and the Nymph bonuses, and I'll be a Warlock with, hmm, the Sorceress charge method as backup, four times faster is hardly peanuts. What kind of magical goodies does Chanabiel want me to have, in her wisdom?" He takes a peek.

Chanabiel, in her wisdom, wishes to offer him 20 points' worth of:

- a single Golden Fish (2 points), which if tended appropriately builds a surplus of spiritual energy which can either be sipped when convenient or harvested all at once, after a decade of maturation, as a vegetarian if not strictly vegan alternative to human sacrifice. (Hint, hint!)

- an Alchemist Stone (6 points), which can turn obscene quantities of transmutation reagents into a permanent catalyst, stored in his Rod, that can mimic them for Hexing purposes. (He'll learn about all that Rod and Hex stuff later. She thinks he'll enjoy the efficiency of this doohickey, though.)

- a Nymph Vessel (2 points), which does seem awfully convenient given his hybridization plan - it can provide infinite clean mineral water, in addition to pre-nymphed water if he has some obscure use for that. (Generally that side of it is used by non-nymphs.)

- a Magic Talisman (18 points), taking the form of a platinum diadem with one great black pearl, which will grant him rank-5 control over the magic of Dominion; the design has slots for Dominion shards, as well. (She knows how mortals value their safety and privacy, and she can't say she disagrees with the impulse.)

- a Cosmic Pearl (10 points), which will allow him to give himself one additional affinity, in addition to allowing him to brew up a potent alchemical reagent more or less at will and empowering his elemental magics as long as it's on his person. (This one's just nice to have, especially when it's keyed to your soul so that you don't burn it out getting the extra affinity.)

- a suit of Mythril Armor (2 points), which will protect him from a frankly outrageous amount of punishment, protect him from extreme temperatures, and feel like he's wearing nothing at all. (Sue her, she likes the crusader aesthetic.)

- a Sun Shard (4 points), which will let his Rod transform into a dizzying array of highly effective melee weapons aesthetically similar to lightsabers without losing its normal functions. (Again, sue her: it's cool.)

- and, as a signing bonus absolutely free, the knowledge and equipment necessary to tattoo magical runes into his own skin, and a value of 1,000,000 Kisses. She's not exactly hard up for the cash, and the tattoos are just neat, she thinks.

Also, she knows he didn't really ask, but she's so looking forward to getting to know him. It'll be a learning experience for the both of them.

"Are they always like that," Tom asks Nia somewhat blankly.

"No, many much less personalized. Poke the others to compare if you like."

"I really don't think I will. Personalized, I like. Just... very chipper."

Okay, which of these does he want.

The fish is condescending. The Stone, from what he can determine, is efficient but unexciting. The Vessel, what, like he can't get his own water? The armor is nice but if he's fighting someone in person he's spending too much time in airports.  The Sun Shard, ditto.

The Talisman and the Pearl... it would be really nice if he could get both.

"Do you know if there's any way to get the Pearl if I take the Talisman, or vice versa, even though I can't get both on the same signing bonus? Will she take a pre-order?"

"You can buy more with power points, if that is where you wish to do the spending."

"Well. We'll see where my spending impulses take me, they're just both very tempting."

For now... the Talisman almost fills up his signing bonus, and he can buy the Pearl later; if he does it the other way around he'll have to pick up more cruft. The Pearl still needs him to take some cruft, though. Two points' worth.

Fuck it. The fish may be condescending, and he does not love the concept of having a pet forced on him, but it's not like a source of spiritual energy (whatever that is) is useless. Talisman, fish, thank you ma'am. (Miss? ...making sure his words rhyme is beneath him and he did not think that.)

Oh, no, thank you.

Gah.

"Where to next? The thing that hybridized me, that category seemed to have some interesting things in it?"

"Many interesting things there! Do you want the good interesting that cost points or the bad interesting that give extra? Extra is not only short term take it home today not next week but also power cap increases if this matters."

"Ooh, let's be bad!"

"Let us! Let us be bad over here - oh, that's curious, your - soul has took one already... it is already factored into your points... seen this once before, blind client needed to take separate perk to unblind instead of drawback to stay blind through awakening. This one is making you a sociopath! Do you like it this way or prefer not being so?"

Huh.

"It's worked for me this long," he demurs. "I really wouldn't know what to do with all that... affective empathy. Are you the only one who can tell that I, ah, took that drawback?"

"Rank five diviners can."

"And how many of those are there walking down the street? ...also, are they more likely to react with oh what an interesting quirk or well we all do some inadvisable things in pursuit of magic, tut tut or Jeeves, lock the doors and hide the livestock?"

"Rare walking down the street. Most people cannot get up to rank five at all and the ones who can may do it any which way, not only divining. But not hard to find if someone with an organization that likes to check up on people likes to check up on you. It is fairly tut tut but people may assume you were in throes of grief or naturally awakened and had no choice."

"Hmm. And might they choose to confirm with you that this was not the case?"

"I tell people fuckall! Very big guns become very agitated if neutral awakeners are hassled."

"Ah! My confessional is sealed. Then I will not be fixing that little problem, thank you enormously. Now let's get back to inconveniencing myself... a lot of these stars look very big, I wonder if that's a good or a bad thing." He points at a modestly sized one which looks like it could balloon to fill almost the entire space. "For instance, what on Earth is that?"

"Variable in size actually. Gives you a secret weakness, more points if it's more common and fucks you up more from farther away. If you touch plutonium and this only makes it twice as hard to do magic, only seven points. If a can of beans wrecks all your magic from across a basketball court and makes you easy to hypnotize and less immortal to boot, thirty three."

"...huh. If someone can touch me, it feels like I'm already in pretty dire straits, dire enough that a bit of an extra handicap won't be the decisive factor... how much less immortal?"

"Nixes passive methods of coming back to be alive. Nymph method will still work - is discount True Love's Kiss, someone plants one on you sleeping beauty style and wishes you were less necrophilia to mack on and poof."

"I bet I could arrange for that. And then the rest is just intensity? I don't want my mind affected by it but I'm fine with it burning me, or keeping me from doing magic, or that flavor of unpleasantness. Plus nixing my passive resurrection... and I need something for it to actually be, don't I."

"How's true love? Will it let me get away with that?"

"No, cannot be quite so hard to acquire for someone wanting to inconvenience you. They need not be able to get six at Tesco but it cannot be gated on romance quests."

"Drat. I don't really want it to be something sticky, so virgin's blood is out... not to mention that sounds awfully inconvenient if I'm going to be interacting with virgins, and I wouldn't like to deny myself that."

He thinks about it for a moment.

"Do unicorns exist?"

"Yes. Though, you would get false positives, as naturalists playing silly buggers with goats and horses and narwhals also exist."

"Hmm. ...I can live with that, I think. If I make my one true weakness the heart of a unicorn, is that rare-but-not-too-rare?"

"Yes. If only the hearts presuming you want touch range?"

"Yes, it'd be inconvenient if after all that scheming I could be hit by a unicorn having tea in the next room."

"And the whole shebang minus hypnosis, so, poke a heart and no magic passive or active, eats your mana real fast, will not Erinyes-reincarnate if you die right then?"

"...yes, I think so. Would I be able to, I don't know, set something up in advance to get me teleported to a kissing accomplice upon my death? Or would that also be disrupted?"

"Huh. I think that the unicorn heart will stop foxing your magic once you are dead, so something like this is not impossible, but I do not know from the top of my hat what would do it."

"I don't intend to only do things that are known. I'll take it. What's next? Dealer's choice."

"I mentioned the blind girl - you can have a problem of a sense, too much of it or too little of it. Too much is also sort of like having the superpower of super-hearing or whatever but in the most inconvenient of ways; losing a sense nothing so clever available."

"The conventional five? Or are we tossing in proprioception, ineffable magical tingles, ennui, gaydar..."

"Conventional five. Not stone deaf or all darkness all the time unless you soup this up, but very very much impaired."

"Hmm. If I deaden my sense of smell and enhance my sense of taste, and... how's the enhanced touch, anything to write home about?"

"Some people find it fun at certain moments. Does make it hard to wear most clothes, touch a lot of things..."

"Mm. Potentially not worth it. I have excellent control over what I put in my mouth, but it would be more limiting if I couldn't bear to touch cement. So - deaden smell, enhance taste, keep touch in mind for if I'm desperate for a bit of extra magic."

"Deadening smell and enhancing taste gets you four more points. I hope you can cook and are not at present a fan of hotsauce and ancient cheese. Next in this section is one where you are very light. Shock carnival weight-guessers, blow yourself around in the wind easier, but also easy to knock down. Compatible with one that makes you heavy, actually, but you do not seem to have this too, only the lightness one. Floaty, no scuba diving. Reduces carrying capacity of broomstick because this is based on weight."

"Lead-lining my clothes seems very straightforward. That's just free magic."

"It is popular, yes. Two points. Here is one where you get to be the most dangerous game. There are witch hunters and you can be one's least favorite person for ten points. They keep coming back, and don't stop and call it good if you can come back either, so that would be somebody trying to tag you with a unicorn heart and off your kissing accomplice, but it is pretty hefty in the points."

"Not a pushover, I'm imagining... how hard do they keep coming back? If I get one in a box and drop him into the ocean, will he be back from that? If I trap his soul in a rock on the beach?"

"These are several different fellows, not one chap who has always conveniently mopped up his last target by the time another awakening gives him a new one, but I think the commonest way is they have a soulbound relic that respawns them periodically."

"More trapping-the-soul than lead box, then. I think I can work with that, unless my intuitions are badly off about what kind of magic is available to me."

"Yes, not impossible to deal with such a hunter permanently, if you are excited to cat and mouse for a bit I am excited for you to take one off the chessboard, they keep murdering and murdering!"

"A public service! Perhaps it'll earn me points with my patron. Yes, let's add the hunter to the pot and move on."

"Let's see what else. One for animals hating you, one to be addicted to something like coffee or gum, one to lock out a kind of magic you don't ever want to do, one to make monsters chase you - no specific monster, so pretty hard to deal with forever - one that makes you pick up power and skill with using it slower. One that makes you ugly, one almost everyone takes that gives an extra nipple in a random place but can be moved. One that gives you a need like for air or water or food only it can be whatever. One that breaks the seal of confessional - not me telling the world from roofs, mind, but just beaconing spies. One where you forget we had this conversation and later you are hit by a car or something that would naturally awaken you and wake up witchy with your memories put back where they belong - cannot tell quite how long this would take, probably less than a year and more than a month. One that gives you imposter syndrome, one that makes you compulsive about something with points depending on rarity of thing."

Sifting through those... he'll think about locking out a magic once he knows his options, addictions are undignified but manageable, ugly is unacceptable, being slow is unacceptable...

"How bad does it have to be, to awaken naturally? I'd expect to bounce back without a problem from being hit by a car, if I woke up shiny and new, but I'm concerned by it giving almost as many points as the immortal hunter."

"Varies. Sometimes very bad, sometimes in fact kills you and then you awaken from dead and have to be smooched, which you will not remember to do, or since also you are an erinyes you reincarnate in somebody."

"Reincarnating... could be inconvenient, I suppose... if I find myself waking up in a geriatric or a toddler, will I return to my ordinary form somehow? Would I need to find additional magic for it?"

"Return to your, not original, but true awakened, form, so not a child or a geriatric. However, not necessarily on this Earth, or even an Earth."

"Oh, that hardly matters. I'm not a homebody. Let's roll the dice, then... and, about the requirement drawback, could I need something like pain as often as breathing? I'm envisioning leaving a tack in my shoe all day..."

"Not a homebody but also not a speaker of Lunabellan Greek. Tack in shoe would work fine unless something affected your ability to feel sensation and you could not replace it sharpish, but if you wish to have a tack always in your shoe this will get you twelve points."

"I think if someone cuts off my senses that thoroughly I'm likely to already be dead, though I suppose not guaranteed. I'll take it. Where does that leave me, I noticed this whole section had some kind of cap on it..."

Glance.

"What, am I full up already? I didn't even supernumerate my nipples!"

"You can be unblemished by supernumeration if you are happy with this set, but yes, you have plenty as is. Could put back the smell thing and take the nipple, or take the nipple and also animals hating you and lock out a school of magic you do not care for to keep your memories of this and not have to be traumatized awake..."

"...you know, I might addict myself to something innocuous so I only get thirsty for pain rather than suffocating without it? I've realized abruptly that this arrangement might be inconvenient for - hmm. Not necessarily sleeping, I'll bet there's some way to get out of that, but anything where I really need to focus."

"It did seem a curious choice! What will you be addicted to? - I think you may double up on pain, actually, if you wish. Seldom comes up but fits in here."

"Delightful! Let's do it. ...and, hmm, I do feel like it's a bit of a waste to pass up that nipple, but where... oh, the weakness was so modular, what if we take two points out of that one? Make it disrupt my magic halfway instead of nixing it completely?"

(He's been thinking idly of decent places for a nipple. He'll probably have it moved to either the back of his tongue or somewhere along his undercarriage, depending on how external it has to be.)

"Yes, doable!" Kerswap.

"Excellent. Now, shall we move from making my life difficult to making it excellent, I think we shall." Tom relocates to the other half of Perks.

"We shall indeedy! Here we have - oh, most everyone wants this, lets you not sleep or sleep very conveniently when you wish."

"Under the circumstances, fuck yes, I'll be most everyone." Yoink.

"And this one lets you be telekinetic but for blood - creepy waterbender power if it's in somebody, turn it into bullets and swords and such if it's not - and swap blood sacrifice in for mana to do spells with."

"Blood sacrifice... is that what the fish is for? Vegetarian blood sacrifice? That sounds fantastic."

"I think vegetarians do not eat fish? But yes, that will do you for the rank five, and for anything less than that you moonlight as an abortion clinic or something."

"She said the fish doesn't even die! It's not vegan, I'm still oppressing the poor thing, but I think that counts for vegetarian. Pretending to be a political cartoonist's idea of Planned Parenthood does also sound great, though. I'll keep my options open." He nabs it. "-I can let go of these if I find myself too strapped for magic, right?"

"Before you awaken yes, not after."

"Yeah, 'course. Just trying not to lock myself in before I know what's available."

"Yep, no locking anything till you tell me you are absolutely for sure sure."

"Alright. What else have we got in our bag of tricks, I'm excited now."

"Hmm, hmm - oh, this one is sort of mixy, bonus and drawback. No rank 5 magic but you get any perk that always costs the same amount free, and become mega talented at all the mundane skills, always going to Regionals to do your curling or your chess or both."

"Oh, fantastic, I can run very quickly and all it costs me is ultimate cosmic power. Next, please."

"Yeah, I do not remember anyone actually taking this and it is only partly because many witches cannot hit rank five in the first place. Next. Control over poison, covers venom and the animal packages of it too, mushrooms and plants. Makes you immune to diseases and toxins passive-style."

"Mm. Poison's fine to level the playing field but my understanding is that I'm already going to be quite a big fish. I'll take it if I run out of things I like better."

"Here is the one for if you want to be a boy. If you enjoy the boy anatomy recreationally you can magic it on but to be always a boy this is the one."

"I hadn't realized the alternative was on the table, though some things you said make more sense now. I'll be taking that."

(The implication throughout has been that men are a rare and prized commodity, that it's an advantage he can leverage, it's only one point, he'll - have a negligible upper-body-strength advantage - fuck you. He doesn't have to justify himself.)

"A fine choice, my boyfriend is also a boy. Next, we have cartoon style hypnotic suggestion! Gaze into their eyes, tell them to do a thing. Does not give them special abilities to repress memories and gets harder the less they want to do the thing."

"Tempting... yeah, I'll pick it up." Low on the priority list, though. He's remarkably good at that already.

"Mime powers! Never be without a hairbrush or a ladder."

"...I think I'll manage?"

"They are a bit silly if ever so convenient. Third eye awakening to let you see auras?"

"Hmm. To what end?"

"Read emotions, magical fingerprinting - unless they've secreted theirs away but this is unusual."

"Ah. Yes, then, definitely. I'm a bit worried I'm going to fill up on bread, here, but I've got room to grow, too, right?"

"Lots and lots!" she promises. "Next one interfaces with Witchery, it's one of the ranked magics over yonder. Witchery is the dressing the part bit of being a witch, hat and robe and rod-meaning-wand-slash-broomstick. This one lets you use your hat as a portal, connecting to duplicates of itself or if you have enough Witchery and a little Portals letting you hop onto any normal portal network. Also allows you to telekinesis your hat and rod and garment even if they are far away or you can't see them."

"Portals are a yes. Unless - with enough portal-magic of my own could I do it just as easily without jumping into and out of a hat?"

"Enough Portals is very schmancy and good but will not strictly speakingwise let you hop in through somebody else's portal that you can't get to the far end of."

"That is a very solid advantage. I'll take it."

"Next one is not popular, more like a fun drawback than like a perk. Mood weather. What it sounds like. Gloomy weather when you are a gloomy gus."

"???" Tom enunciates. "No."

"Didn't think so. This one lets you swap your mana charge method, you have three methods so it is likely not called for."

"...it's one point, and one of my charge methods is sleeping, which I don't! Does it have to be from one of the ones I was offered?"

"No, if you want recharging from making homemade mead you are out of luck because you do not make honey but you could do the one for eating meat or hanging out with dwarves or whatever."

He sifts through the options available. Some of them feel very narrow, others too broad. He comes up with a few: one that feels like glass crunching underfoot, one with the prickly smell of a winter breeze, one like hot sunlight, and one like the clash of steel. ...and then one that tastes spicy, because if all the other senses are represented, it's just weird not to.

"What're all these?"

"Destroying stuff, standing against a temptation or a social pressure, being famous and emotion-inspiring about it, fighting, toasting marshmallows - that is, setting things on fire."

...he wants the famous and emotion-inspiring one. But he's already got one for being perceived, being desired - he wants to cover his bases, not just shore up his strengths. And it'll be potent once he's established, but once he's established he'll need it less.

The burning one isn't high-throughput, he'd have to burn a lot for any significant effect. Destruction is better. Standing against social pressure, that could be good.

But the fighting one would be obviously useful, exactly when he wants it, and his existing ones can keep up in his downtime, and even though it starts out barely a trickle, it looks like it grows as he fights. He'll be very thankful for it, he thinks.

"Fighting," he says reluctantly.

"In place of sleeping? All right." Swap!

"Anything else? I'm getting anxious to get to the magic, but I will heroically tolerate more superpowers."

"These are magic, just not ranked magic. We can go look at ranked magic and come back to these but there are only a couple left, this one that soups up your divination if you have enough ranks in it and that one that lets you summon the devil Mammon to be heinously ripped off buying anything that is for sale anywhere without having to put on shoes."

"Mm... anything on sale anywhere sounds potentially handy, but enough portals can get me most anywhere already, right?"

"Yes, if you know where has it in stock. Devil also takes barter and mana instead of cash, and any kind of cash, just, will be charging you at least twice as much as you would get at Tesco."

"I'm not exactly wowed. How much does the other one soup up my divination? It looks like I'm getting a good discount..."

"Makes it more intuitive to figure out a bad omen and what to do instead. Gives you hints like 'today take a scenic route' or 'this time skip the fish sandwich'."

"...that could be very handy. Having very specific bad omens... yes, let's toss it on the pile."

"All right. Doing this means you must take four of Divination, so that brings us to ranks." She puts four ranks of Divination in the tentative build. "Generally recommended to do a stack shape sort of thing - something at rank three, something at rank two, something at rank one, for each at four. Fiddling with this a little is okay though."

"Huh. But in a few decades, when I've mastered everything I'd set my mind to, I don't need that kind of stack anymore, right? It would be irritating to need to dabble constantly to shore up everything I perfect."

"Right. Stack helps early on, not necessary forever."

"Excellent. Shall I look through my options myself, or will you be giving me an overview?"

"Because you are a warlock, you gain a point each from taking one rank of Consortation - that is demon summoning - Curses - what it sounds like - Hexes - transmutation - Necromancy - as you would expect - and Divination, though you have more divination than that so it is not net positive. You seem the type to want all these points." Yoink yoink yoink yoink. "Since your affinities are Soul and Body from being Neutral plus Mind from the nymph perk, you get discounts on Runes, writing symbols on things to make them do stuff, Familiarity, having an animal companion, Portals, which you have heard of already, and Psionics, an elementalism. Because you are not a real sorceress and only play one on TV, you are limited to one elementalism you do not have affinity for, so on top of Psionics choose one - you can fiddle with affinity later with your pearl - of fire, water, air with bonus electricity, earth, nature, and metal. That dimmed out one is metamorphosis, turning into a kaiju, because you are not any of the races that do that, but you can get it if you take enough Familiarity and let the familiar be the one to menace Tokyo. That one is Alchemy, what you'd expect, this is Witchery, that's come up before regarding your hat, and that is Aethernautics, basically astronomy, not popular except with nerds or people planning to do advanced portal shenaniganry. That is the overview, what shall I say more on?"

"I am full-on kid-at-Christmas, here - won't I get another affinity for the Pearl, should I pick that up now so I can figure it into my calculations in case I end up wanting three specialties with Fire discounts?"

"You have to actually brew your actual pearl into an actual potion and actually drink it which you cannot do right here right now, but you could choose with advance plans in your mind. Inconveniently you cannot wait to pick up any Alchemy ranks till you get a Water or Nature affinity for this reason, though you could take just one for just one point and wait for later on the rest, potion is not complicated. Affinities do not count twice, so most of these are already as cheap as they will ever be except the elementalisms. For this I recommend you pearl on a Nature affinity. Combined with others it gets you not just Naturalism but also earth and wind and alchemy. So, for your out of affinity elementalism you will want metallurgy, waterworking, or firecalling. Being part nymph I suspect you may be best served by waterworking but it is your call."

"...damn. Hmm. I do think I'll want Nature eventually, then, but do I need to take my out-of-affinity Elementalism now, or can I wait until I've got my feet under me with the non-elemental specializations and see what'll serve me best then? I might invest now anyway, but more information is better than less."

"No need to take it now, all this is available forever."

"Alright. Then I think I'll leave my Elementalism choices for last, keeping your Nature recommendation in mind. Um - I genuinely can't choose what I want to hear about first, and I am going to want to hear about all the specializations - can you find some sensible order to tell me about them -"

"The ones you are taking one rank of anyway unless you do something weird, how's about. Curses! - assume for all ranked magic that they all get better in numbers kinds of ways as the ranks go up, I will mention new things at each rank but not bigger things till you ask me how much how fast how often etcetera, okay? Otherwise gets terribly wordy. A curse is a thing, almost always a mean thing, you can plant on somebody else, but you can do it conditionally - when you say to them 'fuck you' or when the moon is full or when they try to drink beer or when they violate their restraining order or something. Divvy up the duration how you like, to catch the next five restraining order violations with ten seconds each or something. Curses have five basic kinds. Sickness is what it sounds like, Pariah makes wildlife hate them starting with bugs and eventually also plants, Madness makes them crazy amounts of angry, Disaster gives bad luck, Spellbind attaches other magic like potions or setting things on fire to curse effects so they can use the fun conditional setup. The spellbindings can be nice things but do have to go with some curse, even if it is only a little one, and you can only spellbind magics of up to your Curses rank - no reason you cannot attach a rank five potion to a rank one curse so long as you could do a rank five curse though. Rank three lets you cast many at once, and adds voodoo dolls - can curse through voodoo dolls, cannot decapitate through voodoo dolls, can tickle or pinch them. Rank four the voodoo dolls are more full featured, you could pick up marionetting if you wish, damage transfers too. Rank five can curse people with immortality. Very thorough. Still age and get hurt, just not die. Do it backward to de-immortalize somebody who is immortal. Mighty serious collateral damage around here from standard curses, avoid on this Earth to prevent going the way of dinosaurs, again, from planar dynamics problems. Voodoo dolls can now be one doll many customers and they can hear you if you want, make them levitate and go someplace, free indefinite duration with purchase for curses you do through dolls on these people. Will you surprise me not taking all five ranks right away?"

"No!"

"Seven points down the hatch then!" Put. "Way of the dinosaurs business is however business of the serious sort. No being obvious magic to people on this particular Earth. Veil will cover little slips but big ones destabilize the complicated thingamajig. Last time this wasn't even the keystone Earth and it got dinosaur problems and now it is."

"I don't actually intend to cause the next Black Death. I have a sense of priorities. But I do want to be able to flick a finger at someone and ensure they can't pop back up like a springtime daisy if I need them dead. So: seven points, down the hatch."

"Your points to spend! Hexes are transmutations. There is a rank zero one to mint your mana into witch money, which is called Kisses. They sound weirdly specific but are more useful than they sound. Eggs into chocolate and back, and such - you do not have to end with the same kind of egg you started with. But also polymorph live creatures into other live creatures, size limited by rank. Grownup human into classic frog or something is rank three. Hexes need some sacrificed medium - wood, metal, semiprecious rocks, fancy wood, super precious rocks or metals, by rank. Rank three lets you animate objects to do your dishes or fold your laundry - remember to program in a way to make them stop or become a cautionary tale. Rank four you can make golems, souped-up version of animating objects or get fancier if you stick a spirit into it, various options how to come by such a spirit. Rank five you can duplicate objects but it is slightly nerfed, magical properties don't carry over and you can't make more medium of the same rank this way."

"...fuck me, I just realized they're all going to be like this."

Fighting himself, he unclasps his metaphorical fingers from around all but two ranks of Curses - it's point-neutral even if it doesn't actively give him a point - and sighs, then takes one of Hexes.

"Alright. Next one. I'll up some of these later, probably, but - for now, let's just keep going through."

"Many have a sort of inflection point at rank three because that is a common maximum rank and has accordingly much prior art from many prior artisans. Next is consortation. With demons. Trading with them so they will do your bidding. They do not all completely deserve the bad rap but still risky. This your sort of fun or not so much?"

"...enough that I'll hear them out, not enough that I'll be making any kind of serious bargaining. If they want blood, or sex, or a chip butty, something can be worked out, but I'll sign no contracts. Does that sound reasonable from your better-informed point of view?"

"The littler ones do want a chip butty or sex. None of this is paper contracts, the deals are implicit with the summonings - you pay in advance and then they're bound to service. Ranks determine what kinds you get. Imps are just six inches high, foliots nearly grownup sized, succubi and incubi and nabasu can pass for human, etcetera, and they have sin-themed skills."

"Oh, adorable, I could shag a satanic Minpin. Not a strategic priority. Rank 1 for the point, but I think we'll move on for now."

"Necromancy! Spirits and the undead. Rank zero to see dead people. Just the ones who did not go to an afterlife or are floating around for some reason, also works on demons and animal spirits and such. Gaining ranks gets you shinies like letting mundies see the sights, being an unknown phone number to whoever is in a grave you visit, have pet skeleton cats or whatever. Rank two and you can cleanse a loony ghostie so it remembers what is going on, flag it for a psychopomp if you want. Make Frankensteins, control more undead animals and they could be bigger, telekinesis of bones. Rank three, combine runes with bones. Telekinesis with non-bones deadness, be very dangerous in a butcher counter. Make bones out of nothing. Glue spirits to your undead if they're okay to play along. Rank four be a psychopomp your own self, if you know the afterlife address to send them to and the head honcho will not return to sender - probably you could send some care of Chanabiel, though I do not know her life. Telekinesis live bones and meats. Sense it alive or dead through walls. Rank five you can be a lich, that is the thing where you hide your soul in an egg or something and hide it. You can make your own afterlife if you have your own extradimensional space to keep it in."

"Five."

"You are very suited to being a warlock." Five ranks of necromancy is seven points. "Do you want to hear more about divination to see if you want a fifth rank of it?"

"Yes, let's hear it - also to figure out if the rest is deadweight enough I should just drop the investment despite how nice that addition sounded."

"Rank zero is Sending. Text messages or phone calls or images in your brain. Blockable, but amazing utility. Rank one gets you Identify, public deets about whatever you are looking at. Never fumble for a name at a party again. Always know what kind of shiny rock you have found. Rank two and this works on magic things, and get a status spell to let you keep tabs on whether your quiche has burnt or your infiltrator has been cursed or somesuch. Augury comes at this rank also and is the one that gives you omens that the perk would refine for you, going from 'positive/negative/neutral' to 'positive/negative/bring an apology gift' or what have you. Starts at thirty minutes and goes up from there. Rank three improves these and adds spells Map, Archive, and Foresight: get a picture of what's around you, photographic memory, and battle meditation sort of thing where you can see half a second into the future. Rank four which is what you need for your perk makes all of these jazzier - read a book by touching it, instead of having to photographic memory each page, say - and also adds one where you can aim at something or someone you have mapped for improved range and going around corners even if this is not usual. Rank five you hide from other maps, yourself or other stuff, and all your divination spells are superultracoolest, like identifying weaknesses and status giving more facts about what they are doing or even thinking and your old maps updating themselves."

"That last rank is tempting... but the kind of tempting that Curses and everything on the level with Curses is, not enough to make me take it right now and damn the cost. I'll practice for it."

"Sticking with four, all right. Good for your stacking. Witchery! We are all related back far enough and our zillion-greats grandma gave us all a present. Rank zero gets you basic bitch hat and rod and robe. Without more ranks it takes ten minutes to get dressed and you need tailoring help to make them fancy. Garment replaces what you have on unless what you have on is magic and does not come with undies. Rank one getting them on and off is much faster and you can redesign them without a tailor, turn the rod into the broomstick form and it will be about a bicycle amount of fast. Rank two your outfit is more all-occasions suitable, any weather, keeps the rain off, self-repairing. Broomstick keeps getting faster, and at this rank also catches you if you fall off. Also gets a magic windshield so you do not eat all the bugs. No longer need to wear a onesie. Rank three, put the pocket in pocket dimension. Store rabbits in it - they will be on pause, alive but stasisish - and pull them out of your hat. Draw wand from sleeve. Always have a spare pencil. Broomstick is better and turns into a magic carpet if you want more space for passengers. Rank four, garment works like invisibility cloak, extends to anybody on your broom or carpet with you. Still don't fly anywhere the FAA is looking. Able to tailor for other people. Rank five, hide your whole self in your hat. Mess around with your pocket dimension same as you mess with the embroidery. Holodeck sort of deal, things are not real but very excellent illusion. Guests in your hatland can appear at home whenever they want. So can you, or just come out where you went in."

"Hmmm. The storage sounds really useful... yeah, I'll take it. The fifth-rank necromancy should mean I'm not hurting for self-defense, right, I don't need to save up to pour points into elements?"

"Elements are classic for combat but five ranks of necromancy is not to be sneezed at. Three of Witchery?"

"Yeah. Lay on, Macduff."

"You will want one point of Alchemy to brew your pearl with, yes? Making medicines, stims, dyes, poisons, fireworks, grenades, aphrodisiacs, silly pranky things. Probably stop at one since you will have affinity for it later."

"Quite right."

"Will you want a familiar any time soon?"

"...mm. How much of a vulnerability are they? How much of an asset?"

"You can summon one at rank zero, most any animal you want, this is so easy you can do it by accident. They are smart at like well trained dog levels. If it dies you can resummon it. Ranks are for letting it be a channel for your magic - send it to map places for you or point at anybody you are cursing, say. Two ranks and you can talk to animals. Not make them do your bidding unless they want to for some reason but they will understand and you will understand. Three ranks and you can pick up some quirks from the animal - not exactly what it is actually able to do, more its mythology, I mentioned snakes with bad idea fruit awhile back I think. Crows and such can make you smarter this way. Four ranks you can turn into your animal and familiar can turn into a human! It gets human-smart at this rank. Still subby about it though. Rank five, nine lives, since cats are most popular and traditional. Kicks in before you do any other immortality shenanigans, you wake up safe in bed if you die any which way. Refill the supply if you drop below nine by saving cats - get them out of kill shelters is standard."

"I'm shocking myself, but I think I do want a rank. Having a garter snake who can sneak through someone's vents and lay a curse on them, speckled band style... and for quite cheap, too."

"One rank, one point. Eleven left to assign today but endless possibilities later on. Next! Runes! Enchantment - etch a rune on a thing just so and it is magic ongoingly. Or embroider it or paint it. Expensive and slow especially at high ranks but then you have swag. First rank gets Luck, Fertility, Courage, and Chill. All usable backward, for bad luck, contraception, anxiety, and heat. Also an augment rune, for weapons and protections - you pick an affinity, same as the ones giving you discounts on things, and resist magic that has the affinity, or do more damage with it. You could put it on your rod to use for casting, or just get a sword and put poison potions on it or something, whatever. Rank two gets Disease and Heavy, again reversible, useful for sterilizing your tattoo needles or compensating for being floaty with the complication that makes you floaty. Rank three adds Talent, reversible, and Wind, not really reversible but versatile. I have a Talent bracelet, use it when I am trying to learn anything to take notes with. Rank four, Spell and Warden, not usable backward. Spell lets you attach something else to an object, make it borrowable - cursed jewelry, make your snake a doodad that lets it hat-trick into your hatland. Warden is one to be careful with, dispels or suppresses magic on contact - very elaborate rituals to get it on a thing without disenchanting itself but good if you want to poke around dangerous places. Rank five adds Time, Protection, and Relic. Time preserves a thing from wear and tear - aging, say, or put it on your fridge and never find surprise mold in the back. Protection charm will absorb damage to something or someone, put it on something sturdy. Relics let you copy relic magic onto other things - doesn't get you a second use of your cosmic pearl for affinity but does let you share the passive benefit around."

"Exactly as ridiculously tempting as I've come to expect from the utility magics. I'll take two ranks for now, just because I'd feel like an ass if I couldn't keep myself from flying away in a stiff breeze under my own power."

"Two ranks two points, here you go! Next can be one you probably do not care about. Aethernautics. Track where planets are. Float, fuck with gravity. Fold space a little starting rank three. Rank four you can bop around in the aether to go to other realities - that part is pretty cool but so much investment to get to it. Rank five you can do teleport lock sort of thing, leave radioactive spacefuckery lying around to make people mad, fuck with your age and relationship to time."

"I think you're right - four and five are tempting but it sounds like it's dead before then, and everything is tempting. Except the rubbish, obviously."

"Quite. Similar utility but much smoother progression: portals! Being a witch at all lets you see and use them, regular humans can't. Basic kinds are, one, objects that ker-swap between point A and B and bring folks along; two, enchanted doors or arches that lead somewhere else when they are turned on; three, rifts from hither to yon, very sharp edges. First two kinds last forever but are expensive to make and for some reason of exceeding stupidness it is per mile even though distance is precisely the thing to be spat at here; rifts are a little tiring but not expensive. Ranks mostly numerical in sizes of rifts, number of sustainable gates and doodads, and range on all these - starts at six inches going sixty feet for rifts, one doodad or one gate at a time not more than fifty miles. Fine to visit aunt across town or pull soda out of your fridge without getting up, not very phenomenal nor cosmic, but it goes from there. Rank two you start being able to put rifts to proximas - elemental planes sorts of deals. Fire and ice to start. Hot plate for your potions, ice tray for doing Coldstone Creamery mixins, whatever. Rank three adds an electrical proxima, jump your car or mine bitcoins or something. Rank four adds Water proxima, on-demand fire hydrant but it stops when it's underwater so you can put one in your water tank. Rank five takes the brakes off how many gateways you can hold, you can do a whole interdimensional transit system if you want at this point. Also adds Void proxima, little black hole sort of situation, stand well back. It whispers. Says things like 'come here' and 'don't you want to know what it's like'."

"My god the temptation does not stop coming. One rank, under dire protest, I'll probably come back and sprinkle leftover points over everything later and it's harder to give up ranks taken than to just take fewer in the first place."

"Your stack is not too top heavy at all," she says approvingly. "Elementalisms! Your current affinity trio only gets you the discount on Psionics, I recommend not picking up any others till you pearl on Nature and get three more, though you can pick up another out of affinity now if you want. Psionics! Any of it reduces vulnerability to memetic hazards like looking at Cthuloid horrors and being traumatized by the regular car crash horrors. Might want to pick up especially because you could otherwise get traumatized about your forthcoming awakening. Rank one you can hide a smallish thing from one sense of somebody's or make it look like something else - good if you are a card sharp or do not want your mom to see your vibrator. Give people headaches, optionally triggered by things like looking at a Picasso or whatever. Those things both keep getting numerically more bigger harder better faster stronger etcetera. Rank two, add psychic constructs - chairs, ladders, reading glasses. You can sit on climb and wear them but if someone else tries they will go right through them like a ghost that makes your arm fall asleep. Range on that starts at five meters and gets better from there. Rank three! Teleport kerswap line of sight, not too far but it'll get you out a window or up on a roof or something. Four, you can make the headaches stick forever if you are very mean, nailing somebody through the head with a construct object knocks them out cold like in superhero movies, teleport goes a whole mile, and you can now go aprowl in people's mindscapes, smashing their mind windows and tagging their mind bridges and leaving behind mind cuckoos. Five, in a mindscape you can bust out the mind nukes or do a mind find-and-replace to correct all their typos or whatever - these things could be fixed because they have backups in the soul but it is at least so hard. Slide into the ethereal realm to tromp around the psychic impression mirror universe. Make something an antimeme, nobody unprotected can remember it exists."

"...huh, the psychic constructs sound a bit like that mimery power. I don't think I need any of it urgently enough to take it today - I can substitute headaches with Curses, I didn't take the mimery in the first place, and I don't do trauma."

"Yes, mime power is not unrelated technically speaking. You say you don't do trauma now but recall when you have a therapist in ten years that I warned you. Shall we go over other elementalisms that it would be silly to take today or nah?"

"Mm, I think I'll get the picture better when I'm not retaining a two-hour-long scattershot lecture. So let's move on. What else is there, even?"

"Factions! Especially important since you are about to forget this ever happened for a while and not follow up on whatever you decide, I can pinch Fate a little to make you wind up hither or thither. Big factions all have special magic that outsiders can't usually get. We've got a couple schools, a couple fairy feudalism situations, the literal moon, edgy cults, and the pan-Abrahamic interfaith society. What shall we add to the two hour lecture?"

"Absolutely no pan-Abrahamic societies. Everything else sounds neutral-to-positive, can I get the elevator pitches?"

"Arcadia is the hip modern college and college town. They take any witch. Flexible schedules, heaps of electives, slightly party school but they do still have a great library and everything. The faction magic is about lucid dreaming and bringing fictional stuff to life, called Digicasting. Hawthorne is the ancient strict formal school - admission has a requirement that you be able to hit at least rank three, and they do slightly kinky-looking-to-outsiders disciplinary practices, they think this makes people learn more and they do have very good alumni in all fields. Faction magic of lots of little utility spells cast with a wand, guess what it's called, it's Wands. The Faewilds are where I live when I'm at home - I did go to Arcadia for a while but my girlfriend is from an old Faewild family. Summer court and winter court just like you'd expect if you read the right fantasy books, the one fancy and centralized and the other scattered and shifty. Absolutely gorgeous scenery full of toothy monsters to swat. Faction magic is Covenants, enforcing magic contracts. The moon has Lunabella on it. They have an elaborate nested patronage system not totally unlike slavery except in how nice it usually is, even the king considers himself beholden to the constitution like that. Very luxurious and cosmopolitan. Edgy cults vary, they work in small cells - range from 'I sacrifice hamsters to piss off my mum' to 'I assassinate and/or mind control world leaders to appease my dark master', the fate twist would have you wind up in a relatively suitable one but I cannot predict what kind that would be."

Sort, sort, sort. "I don't want to be in any cult that I'm not the dark master of. I certainly don't want to be the slave of a slave. Faewilds are fine but unexciting. Hawthorne and Arcadia... I'm leaning Hawthorne, strongly, but why don't you pitch me on both."

"If you are leaning Hawthorne perhaps it is right for you! It is more intense. Big spacefucky cavern under the Greenland ice sheet, school uniforms, sort of an everything not mandatory is forbidden approach to class scheduling. If you fall behind you will get tutoring, they don't let you fail out. If you excel you will get privileges. If you misbehave they will make - well, they will make most people regret it, you are going to be a curious sort of pain addict and might be fine, though they do have capital punishment if you really cross lines versus their totalitarian overseers. This means they can attract teachers who are not super into teaching if they are good enough at their specialties. It is a research university and the teachers can say things like 'in my class the rule is that you do not talk and direct all questions to my grad student' and then they will let you listen in while they ramble about their experiments with turning pocket dimensions inside out or watch them turn fossilized extinct trees into Ents or whatever is cutting edge these days. It is always kind of dim there, not hard to see because there is always a full fake moon up but not sunshiney, some people find this too gloomy. Half the buildings hang from the ceiling which I think is terrific fun myself.

"Arcadia is newer - not new, but newer - and more relaxed. Has classes that aren't just about magic and being functional enough to learn more magic and you can self-pace. Attracts teachers who don't like being so somber and strict, who do like teaching novices and designing curricula and things. It is in a pocket dimension, the landscape changes every few months by popular demand, goes from hot springs to zombie theme to mountains full of caves outside the stable areas so you can do different activities in your copious spare time. Lots of clubs and extracurriculars, easy to make friends, lots of field trips and hands-on learning. They do exchange programs with Hawthorne on occasion."

"Capital punishment?! Fuck, that'll keep me on my toes. Arcadia sounds great for people, but I'm me. Hawthorne, rah rah."

"I think it is very rare and mostly applies to trying to bring Cthuloid horrors home as pets or whatever but yes capital punishment. Wands! Takes tremendous explaining because of being so grab bag. Recharge wanding ability with rest, limited uses per day by rank. Rank one! Light, illusion, force bursts, force shoves, force stabs, magic marker, cheat at the high jump, counterspell. Rank two! Flashbang, except separate flash and bang. Fuck with oxygen levels to euthanize mice or summit Everest breathing easy. Zippo lighter. Taser. Garden hose. Weird sticky gum projectile. Pain spell. Rank three! Levitate shit. Silence. Force slicey-slice. Stop folks in the name of the you. Discount earthmoving. Sunburst light spell. Sleep spell. Telekinetic hand supplementations. Rank four! Big old swat of force. Shatter everything in a space like a cartoon opera singer. Fancier illusion. Zero gravity. Make a couple beings each other's voodoo dolls like the weirdest get along shirt. Spiderman gravityfuckery. Rank five! Permanencify stuff. Contingency triggers for stuff. Force swarm of razor blades slicing up all the everything in an area. Great big dollop of water or fire or electricity like your wand is doing the dragonbreath thing. Make stuff bigger on the inside a la the TARDIS."

"...I think that's the second-most-versatile magic I've heard, and it's the most immediately useful for making sure I don't get killed before I can learn the rest. How much of it can I get with what I've got left?"

"Uh. Negative one, since you bought that pearl with power points."

"...oh, hell, you got carried away too. Hmm. We should be alright if I just..."

Tom surveys his choices. What can he cut - well, he said already Suggestion was low priority. If he needs help making people do what he wants, he's not trying hard enough. That's two points.

He drops it, and grabs what he can of Wands. Which is a decent amount, for one point.

"There you go. Apologies for not being too budget conscious. Any other questions or tweaks or shall we move to the final step?"

"...no, I got enough of a look figuring what to cut... it's a pity I don't have more points to throw at augmenting my specializations, but the first while of training's going to have high returns, I can build them up."

"Mmhm! And quests keep being fast forever, and Hawthorne will set you a demanding schedule. Final step is to design your true form. Can look a lot like you now since you are part neutral, but blend in bits of the species you picked, tweak anything you don't care for while you are at it."

His body can be toned, a swimmer's build instead of the niche-appeal gauntness of someone who doesn't like eating. His eyes can be deeper, clearer, bluer; his hair, less mahogany and more inky-black, with a bloody red underneath if it must be lit just so. Teeth, white and shining and neat like an American movie star, but just a bit too sharp. He doesn't need hair below the eyebrows - sculpt those a bit, while he's at it - though he'll maintain an exactingly neat pubic triangle, just because it looks a bit less plastic. As for what nestles within that triangle, well, he's not going to be ridiculous, but he's not going to be pious about it either. (He adds a freckle, for eye-catching asymmetry.)

His skin will take nicely to the soft shimmer of Nymph scales, and the Erinyes' "runny mascara" tears can be manipulated, just so, until they're more of a long, fading cat's-eye with a deeper shadow in the socket. (Perhaps he was lying down, when he wept those tears.) And the wings, of course, glossy and magnificent. The Nymph fins stymie him for a moment, until he realizes he can draw the webbing back like so and stretch the spines thus, and then they're more horn than membrane, and nestle into his hair for a bit of devilish appeal.

Wipe away the scars. Leave a few, the trophies of victory or defeat - the jagged line along his forearm, the round burns clustered on his shoulder like freckles, the divot in his eyebrow. (Admittedly, that last is less for the memories and more because he likes the visual effect.)

He looks himself over, a vainglorious Michelangelo. After some thought, makes his fingernails black and shining; after some more, makes them just barely nacreous; after still more, changes them back.

"I've done what I can to improve on perfection," he says solemnly.

"Marvelous. Ready to forget you ever met me till something horrible happens to you?"

"I think so. You've been lovely."

"Leave me a nice review in six months or forty years or whenever it happens!"

"Perhaps I'll remember just enough to get myself properly fucked up sooner than later. Hope springs eternal."

"Maybe I will be a fading dream. Have a lovely witchy life."

There is a discontinuity and he is on the street, missing a couple of hours. There is no peculiar shop.

When you expect nothing, you're never disappointed.