exploratory kidnapping

[alicornucopia]

In this room are two women, one gray and sixty years old, one just thirty and red-haired, both wearing elaborate outfits. The younger casts a spell.

In this room is now also a third person. (On whom the elder woman promptly also casts a spell, which she had at the ready.)

Comments

[missnicegirl]

"Yes," she says. "What do you want to know?"

[alicornucopia]

"Apparently it can teleport and cure shrens. This is a diverse skillset," says Jensal dryly. "What else?"

[missnicegirl]

"And conjure water and tell time and change the colours of things and move things and see magic and redundantly do witchcraft and I might be forgetting some stuff," says Matilda. "And it can learn new things, but I'm the best at teaching it. And different people catch it differently. You and Ludei and the babies I saw who caught it, you're all very... shiny with it. You have a lot of magic. The humans I've seen catch it don't have so much."

[alicornucopia]

"What does that let us do, what normally happens if one - runs out?"

[missnicegirl]

"I've never seen anyone actually run out before, but I guess you wouldn't be able to do any more ialdae until you got more. But... have might not be quite right, it might be closer to say you make a lot of magic. It's not just an amount of it that you have until you use it up and then it's gone."

[alicornucopia]

"We're generating more of the stuff? What happens to if if we aren't using it up at the same rate?"

[missnicegirl]

"Well, you keep a bunch - you keep a lot, ialdic dragons particularly I mean - and the rest just..." Matilda makes a handwavy flapping/fanning gesture. "Sort of does the same thing mine was doing when the hole in your magic was throwing it all away. It just gets spilled. And then any ialder nearby can use it, I guess."

[alicornucopia]

"What if they don't do that?"

[missnicegirl]

"Then... I'm not sure," she says. "It just sits there until someone does something with it. But I guess I don't leave obvious trails of ialdae behind me wherever I go, so maybe it... dissipates?"

[alicornucopia]

"Spreads out? Disappears? Sinks into the ground? Magnetizes to other ialdae at greater distances?"

[missnicegirl]

"I don't think it stops existing, and I don't think it cares very much where the ground is," she says. "And if it liked clumping together with other ialdae a lot I'd definitely be followed around by clouds of it. So 'spreads out' is probably closest."

[alicornucopia]

"How did you get here in the first place, anyway?"

[missnicegirl]

"Some people in Linnip summoned me. They said they were exploring for interesting things from other worlds. And they gave me witchcraft lessons and found a dragon to teach me Ertydon and I told them things about ialdae. And they showed me a really big library when I asked - that's where I found the books about shrens."

[alicornucopia]

"Interesting," says Jensal slowly.

[missnicegirl]

"What do you mean?"

[alicornucopia]

"It's pretty uncommon to summon people. It's known to be doable, but usually no one does it. I hadn't heard of a project in Linnip, not that anyone would have a reason to tell me or put it in Esmaarlan newspapers."

[missnicegirl]

"Maybe they were just really curious. Oh, and they had me try to give ialdae to some people, and I'm teaching it to the two who caught it."

[alicornucopia]

"Really. Who?"

[missnicegirl]

"Well, their names are Annei and Sarsia... Terali said they're volunteers from a girls' school."

[alicornucopia]

"I'm sure that's technically true, if they're Linnipese," says Jensal. "It isn't as though the place has an abundance of schools which admit boys."

[missnicegirl]

"...What do you mean? Why not?"

[alicornucopia]

"I've never personally visited Linnip, you understand, but the world history curriculum word on it is that after they kicked out the Ertydoan colonists a couple hundred years ago they mass-converted to Aleism, now a moderately popular world religion, and Aleism is remarkably sexist. It's moderated where it's found in other countries, but in Linnip it's the state religion and accordingly they don't send boys to school or let them do much without supervision from their mothers or sisters or wives."

[missnicegirl]

"The books in the library were a little like that, but I didn't know how much like that it really was there... that is not fair," she says. "Boys should be able to go to school and do things if they want."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, it might be that they don't want," says Jensal, "considering the boys are Aleists too, but I haven't asked any."

[missnicegirl]

"They should still be allowed. It isn't fair otherwise."