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]

"That's okay," she says. "I'm going to have lots of fun learning witchcraft."

[alicornucopia]

"It's nice to see somebody so enthusiastic about it," says Raha. "I spend so much time around wizards I can almost imagine I don't do proper magic at all."

"Raha," reproaches Terali. "We know perfectly well it's magic."

"You know perfectly well it's technically magic, but you don't think it's exciting, not a bit," says Raha.

"Anyway. Probably time to send our visitors home until -" Kerah peers at the schedule. "Tomorrow morning."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay," says Matilda. "Bye, everybody."

[alicornucopia]

"Bye!" says Raha, and they are sent home.

[missnicegirl]

The next day, Matilda is ready to be summoned at the appropriate time, with a notebook and pencil of her very own in case she has to take notes on things. Learning! Yay!

[alicornucopia]

And she is summoned, and this time there isn't even any chalk-smudging before Terali leads her down the hall to the witch's office. There is another woman there. "Matilda, this is Lesirra. She's an anthropologist. Do you mind if she sits in on your lesson?"

[missnicegirl]

"Sure, she can do that! It's nice to meet you, Lesirra!"

[alicornucopia]

"It's nice to meet you too!" says Lesirra. "You can ignore me completely if you like, I'm just going to be paying attention to how you talk and what you know and things like that."

Raha has found Matilda a ingredients reference - this is a very thick book - and a thinner volume entitled Assorted Introductory Potion Recipes.

"There are millions and millions of things you could put in a potion, in the world," says Raha, "so instead of learning about every single one before you get to make everything, we're just going to cover all the ones mentioned in this recipe book." And she sets about doing exactly that. Every item mentioned in the book has an entry in the reference, with pictures of it in various states and color-coded lists of uses and interactions. (The books look handwritten.)

[missnicegirl]

Matilda takes some notes in her notebook, and listens attentively.

At one point she asks, "How were these books made?"

[alicornucopia]

"Someone writes them, and then someone with nice handwriting and an illustrator make a clearly legible version with pictures, and then they're copied over with wizard magic as many times as necessary," Raha says.

[missnicegirl]

"That's interesting! Publishing in my world works differently, we don't use magic, but I'm not sure exactly how we do it instead," says Matilda.

[alicornucopia]

"It seems like it would probably take a lot longer without magic involved," remarks Raha.

[missnicegirl]

"Well, I don't know how long it takes you, but I know we can make a lot of copies of a book in not very much time at all," says Matilda. "And the writing looks different, because it wasn't handwritten by a person."

[alicornucopia]

"How does it get written, then?"

(The anthropologist in the corner is scribbling furiously.)

[missnicegirl]

"There are machines for it. I think they're called printing presses."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh! They must be pretty complicated machines."

[missnicegirl]

"They are! If Lesirra is this excited about them, maybe I can find a book about how they work and bring that," says Matilda.

[alicornucopia]

"I would love to see more or less any books from your world you'd like to bring me," says Lesirra earnestly.

[missnicegirl]

"Okay!"

And now back to ingredients.

[alicornucopia]

So many ingredients! "They didn't have one in the store but I've also ordered a book of quizzes on this, so we can make sure you've got the principles down without risking things blowing up in real potion tests," says Raha.

[missnicegirl]

"That's a good idea! Do potions blow up if you do them wrong?"

[alicornucopia]

"Some of them can. You've already learned about two ingredients that will blow up if you put them together without the right stabilizers; can you figure out which from what you remember?"

[missnicegirl]

She ponders this for about a tick, and then comes up with the right answer.

[alicornucopia]

Raha congratulates her and moves on. So many ingredients.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda is very smart and has an excellent memory. She is going to learn all about the many ingredients.