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]

"Vampires were the next obvious one after dragons because their lifespans are obviously determined by magic," she says. "I think I'll have to invent something different and more general for everyone else, because I don't think lifespan is that simple for most species. And I think it might be hard to tell if something I try has worked, depending on what it is exactly. When there's magic directly involved then I can just see what's happening, but plain biology is much trickier, I'm not at all sure how to teach ialdae to see that."

[alicornucopia]

"There's biology analyses but I don't know how they interact with what you do."

[missnicegirl]

"I don't know either, but I should probably find out. If you're a theoretician are you the sort of person who'd be interested to know that some vampires have a kind of magic that lets them hear objects talking? I found that out today."

[alicornucopia]

"Vampiric inanimate audition? That's psych stuff, I'm not particularly into psych stuff."

[missnicegirl]

"If by 'psych stuff' you mean 'not a real kind of magic', ialdae disagrees," she says. "I didn't know about it at all until I saw it with ialdae and asked the vampire about it and she said most people think she is just crazy."

[alicornucopia]

"That's not even a mild mental illness. Most of the vampires who get it wind up in mental hospitals, can't live on their own or even with amateurs minding them."

[missnicegirl]

Matilda considers this.

"Well, hearing everything around you talking about itself constantly probably isn't very conducive to mental health," she says. "But Leekath seemed fine. And the magic part is definitely real."

[alicornucopia]

"...Right. Well, this isn't the most interesting thing I've learned this month, is it."

[missnicegirl]

"I guess not. But it seems like the sort of thing people should probably know. I mean, if it drives most people crazy then maybe the best thing to do with them might be to take away the hearing magic instead of just leaving them in mental hospitals to be yammered at by the walls..."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, yes, now that you've pointed this out that does seem obvious, but psych wizardry was not making any headway on it for apparently obvious reasons."

[missnicegirl]

"Are you the sort of theoretician who publishes results, and if so, could you let people know about this one in between figuring out ialdae?"

[alicornucopia]

"Aaah - look, are you really as young as you look?"

[missnicegirl]

"I'm seven years old."

[alicornucopia]

"Okay. I'm about a hundred sixty, which for dragons is not yet adult, and you are a seven-year-old miracle worker so I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you have noticed that adults are often terrible about paying attention to non-adults. Yes?"

[missnicegirl]

"Yes," she agrees. "One of the vampires I met today thought I was making believe when I offered to make him immortal. I think his husband might be more sensible, though."

[alicornucopia]

"Sure, they're not all terrible, but some of them are terrible. So I publish, but I do it anonymously. If I publish stuff you tell me, you can't tell anybody you've been talking to me, you need to pretend you've been chatting with a hermit Saraanlan elf named Kalobes Ansal."

[missnicegirl]

"That makes sense. Okay," she agrees.

[alicornucopia]

"Great. Okay. So. Vampiric inanimate audition: real thing, who'd'a thunk, I will whip up a cure in my spare time probably shouldn't be too hard now I know what the problem is and be hailed the world over as a boon to the vampire mental health community. Next: ialdae."

[missnicegirl]

"Next, ialdae! Oh, but anyone who can see ialdae will know you have it after you catch it. So I guess I've been talking to you and Aar Ansal, separately."

[alicornucopia]

"You can have been talking to me because I'm a dragon," says Kaylo, waving a hand.

[missnicegirl]

"That's a reasonable reason for me to talk to somebody, I guess... oh, there, you caught ialdae," she says, lowering him back to the floor. "Ordinary levels of it for a dragon, it seems like. I'm not completely sure how to teach you how to see it without an analysis - hmm, but if you cast any magic-seeing analysis on yourself and then took it off, it might generalize. So if you have one for witchcraft or wizardry or anything then you can try that."

[alicornucopia]

"I've got loads," says Kaylo, and he looks one up and casts it. "Just take it right off again?"

[missnicegirl]

"Wait a tick first if you want, but I haven't seen any indication that it takes ialdae a long time to learn an analysis, especially now that it's been taught so many of them."

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo waits a tick. Then he reverses the spell.

[missnicegirl]

The visualization of the analysis doesn't go away.

And after another tick, he starts to see more things. Matilda, for example. Matilda is extremely visible. She has ialdae like the sun has heat and light.

"Ooh," she says. "My ialdae learned your wizardry analysis. Neat! So that's how your ceiling lights work!"