"What's your plan for that? Ending a Blight sounds straightforward, if not easy..."

"Tev and I have a few ideas, but it will take time before we know whether they're going to work, and... hmm. Actually, do you know how well your healing ability works on illness and poisons?"

"I don't. I mean, I haven't gotten sick since the accident but maybe I just can't catch dwarven illnesses or something like that, and as far as I know no one's tried to poison me and I'm careful with the lyrium in the workshop."

"Our other best plan for the sick person I'm thinking of might be even more of a long shot than that, so it could still be worth one of us escorting you to Redcliffe to see if you can help. His name is Eamon Guerrin and he might be very important to the future stability of Ferelden."

"Would that mean I'd have to leave on your schedule without finishing the light?"

"I guess I could bring some supplies and work on it on the way, but I don't know if Stalas will be able to come that quickly or by that route if the plan is for the army to go a different way."

"Is it very important that he come with you?" asks Metella.

"Well, then, I'll have to see what he thinks of the idea."

Nod.

"In the meantime, is there anything else you'd like to know about magic?"

"Is trained magic mostly more of the same thing you mentioned as young mage signs and other stuff that's come up in conversation, or do you learn to do other things too? Is it specialized or do mages mostly have one skillset?"

"We learn to do plenty of things. There are a lot of specialties - it would take a very dedicated mage a very long time to learn everything a mage can possibly do, even if they confined themselves to the things that aren't illegal."

"What's your specialty?"

"I'm sort of a generalist, but my strongest talent is in telekinesis."

"That sounds really useful. What kinds of limits are there on what you can move and how?"

"I'm very unusual - most mages barely use telekinesis at all, and can't do much with it when they do. Elemental manipulation, fire and water and earth and air and lightning, is much easier where it applies."

"...I meant, like, do you have a weight limit, do you have to be looking at the thing, how precise is the detail you can do, can you shear apart or twist or otherwise move solid objects against themselves or do they have to move as units, can you indirectly set things on fire with friction or is it slower than that and if slower how slow."

"I'm trying to say that if I tell you that sort of thing about my telekinesis, you shouldn't let that affect your expectations of anyone else. So it matters whether you're asking because you want to know what I can do in particular, or because you want to know what mages can do in general."

"I'm mostly interested in the theoretical limits of the magic system."

"...I would summarize the limits of my telekinesis as 'precision, power, speed: pick two'," she says. "I've never heard of anyone else whose telekinesis was anywhere close to as good as mine, but I also have no reason to think that what I can do now is the absolute limit of what can be done."

"Huh. Is it expensive energywise?"

"Moderately so, yes. Enough that most people barely try it. I just happened to think it was fun when I was a small child, and happened to be an unusually dedicated small child."

"Does it get more efficient over time, or do you have to use it really sparingly...?"