Alpina is so good and fun and awesome!

I'm kind of thinking about maybe introducing you to Nenio, once I know her a little better and if you think that would be fun. We could all talk about magic together.

She is aware that sometimes you can be friends with two people who would not at all be good friends with each other but it would be so great if they were all three friends.

Oh, that could be neat! And it'll be much easier to tell you apart from other people now that you don't need a pen to talk to me.

Awesome!

Oh hey, I just remembered I got some scrolls of Sending from Areelu Vorlesh, I should show you one of those too!

The Sending diagram is a lot more complicated than the other two, being fifth circle. While Alpina is hourglassing, Brenda adds:

I still wish I knew what Areelu Vorlesh's motives are. It really seems like she wants to be friends, but I don't get the sense that she's sorry for opening the Worldwound at all, and I don't know what that adds up to in terms of how scared of her I should be or what I should do if the answer is "very".

Yes, that's a really difficult question!

When it comes up for me, I always try to be kind and helpful even to scary people, because I think most people, even very scary ones, are better and not worse when they have nice things and people are kind to them, and even when that's not true, I still don't like being the sort of person who isn't kind to people. But I am a notebook, and I mostly only ever encounter people in one context, and you are a person with arms who takes actions and has adventures, and I think you will need a different answer to situations like this because my answer was made for a different kind of situation.

Yeah. I like the idea of being kind and helpful to everyone but I don't want to accidentally be helpful with a plan I'd really rather be thwarting.

On a lighter note: I keep going back and forth on the question of whether to Dragon Fairy Elf Witch a spider. Because having any of the powers Spider-Man has would be awesome but I'm not sure having the powers of a regular spider would be awesome. I'm not sure if spiders even have enough intelligence for it to work, though, so maybe it's moot. And I guess having really lame spider powers wouldn't actually be a problem.

I think it's generally pretty safe to try to DFEW a being when you're not sure if they have any powers you want, because the worst thing that could happen is that they don't have any powers you want and so you don't get any powers, and then you'll still have their heritage later if it turns out that their heritage synergizes well with something else. And if they're not aware enough to count as a being you can DFEW, then nothing happens.

Yeah, fair. It's been a good idea every time so far!

She then doesn't say anything else until about a minute later.

Apparently spiders don't have experiences, which is good actually, being a spider sounds terrible. I bet farm animals do have experiences though and that also sounds terrible and I think I'm going to stop eating meat about it given that I don't really need to eat anyway.

The good news is that some of the demons I fought yesterday and today have awesome powers! One of them made me ✨ smarter ✨ in a way that's less intense than my headband but also broader/more comprehensive and gave me the ability to teleport, which was a very convenient pair of things to get at the same time because it turns out I get one a day and I was smart enough to test it by teleporting across the room instead of somewhere that would have been inconvenient to walk back from. Also I can blend into shadows and turn invisible and I'm a little faster and more graceful, which is fun.

Oh, that's so neat!

Sending is a lot harder to copy than the other two, but I think I almost have it, I just need to concentrate for a little longer...

Got it! That was really something. I'd love to copy more scrolls for you, they're tricky but in a fun way!

I'm glad you think it's fun! I can tell it's going to be amazingly useful, but I'd feel bad bugging you to do it if it was boring. I'm curious whether having a conversation made it take longer or if you can seamlessly multitask that kind of thing?

Having a conversation does slow me down a little but I can always stop writing during the really tricky bits.

Makes sense!

It's really great how much freedom my powers give me. I don't have to worry about getting a job or going to school, because I can sell diamonds and I don't even need much money. I don't have to have any equivalent of parents. Everyone sees how much magic I have and assumes I'm basically an adult, and if I couldn't make things work as basically an adult that would be nerve-wracking, but I'm playing "being an adult" on easy mode and it's working great so far. And if I hadn't picked Isekai Roulette I'm not sure I would have realized that even if it had still been true.

I'm really really glad! My favourite thing is when people benefit a lot from their powers and live better happier more free lives because of them.

<3

It would be really cool to collect statistics about who takes which powers and what they end up doing and how happy they are with their choices. I'm glad I took There's Another One, even if I hope I don't meet them until we've both accomplished a bunch of impressive things.

You're right, statistics would be neat! I think I'm glad I don't have them, though, because I bet there are lots of people who would want privacy about that. Maybe if you meet a lot of people chosen by the Spirit, you can get statistics about just the ones you meet?

I don't understand the mindset of someone who wouldn't be okay with having their choices recorded as part of aggregate data with nobody hanging onto their identifying information, but I don't have to understand them to be glad the Spirit is respectful of their privacy. If I meet a lot of people chosen by the Spirit I'm likely to end up collecting statistics on them whether I try to or not, at this point--my memory keeps getting better every time I DFEW someone with a really good one.

It'll be neat to see what you find out!

It will!

And then there's more reading to do until she gets tired enough to want sleep, and then even more reading to do in the early morning when Brenda discovers that not getting physically tired means she needs less total sleep!

Wenduag gets up when the sun starts peeks over the horizon, unused as she is to sleeping somewhere lit, but outside of a quickly aborted yelp she's pretty quiet about it.

Brenda overhears the yelp, but it doesn't sound like Wenduag's having a problem so she ignores it. Once it's a reasonable time for everyone to be awake, she pries herself away from her reading and joins whoever else in the party is amenable for breakfast, downstairs if this place sells breakfast and elsewhere if not.

Nenio is something of a night owl, but more in the sense that when they're doing something interesting they forget to sleep than in the sense that they can obviate their need to get 8 hours of sleep to prepare spells. Unless something interrupts or otherwise wakes her early, she'll be a bit.

When Brenda seems to be getting up, Wenduag will do the same and meet her in the hallway outside their rooms. She gawks a little at the variety of food people seem to be consuming in the main room of the tavern, but otherwise doesn't take any issue with it.

As usual, Seelah rises before dawn, and finishes her morning ablutions in time to pray with the rising sun. For the first time, her hour of morning prayer results in the goddess sending her spells, but neither her excitement nor the distance between their lodgings delays her overly on her trip to the defender's heart.

Ember doesn’t really have a consistent wake up time per se, especially since the quality of her sleep does end up rather depending on where she’s doing it, but like most days she ends up waking relatively early. Thankfully, now that the demons are gone almost everyone has gotten healed, but none of the clerics spend channels on helping out animals. It starts with a bloodied cat limping nearby, but once she’s reminded Soot is able to help her find a lot more of them.