Ane: Magic Lessons

Ane had thought about Lopsy, even though he seemed to be losing the game with Ilward. Those were the only magicians' names she knew of so far. But, under Big Zhad's advisement she decides to approach Thet first, 'enchantment' sounds cool and there are hints in the notes she has on her one spell in her 'spellbook' (an accounting notebook with one, hand-written spell) that it may be of that school, so this may serve as an introduction/qualification test.

She has done her best to make a good first impression, and the constant breeze around her has dried her freshly-washed robe on the way over. She does not think she smells like fish, but, then, she can not smell that anymore.

Ane takes a deep, steadying, breath before knocking on the door.

Ane had rehearsed what she was going to say when meeting Thet, but all that prep goes out of her head at the sight of the knocker.

"Oh! Wow! You're so cool!" Ane exclaims to the knocker-eye, her hand, still on the metal, strokes the handle. "Can you talk too?" She ask excitedly, forgetting what she is here for and quite prepared to spend the afternoon chatting with the doorknob.

"Thank you." Ane says to the gnome. "I am Ane..." She almost gives full name.

"It was nice meeting you." She says to the doorknocker as she passes.

Ane tries to keep her enthusiasm from overflowing as she glides though the master magician's home to the sitting room.

Almost everything in this sabban, and this home, is magical. Ane's Sixth Sense for 'seeing'† magic is proving much less useful here than elsewhere, where noticing any magic means something, here it is just so much background. She still does no have enough experience to know what everything means, so it is a bit of an overwhelming mess.

Surprisingly Thet's magic books are not magic books, just magic books... um, Ane thinks about this explanation, and decides: they are not 'magical' they are about magic, not magic themselves. Most of the other things —even the tray and the plates for the biscuits and the clear vessel for the tea are magical! Ane wonders if this is just to deal with cleaning and delivery, or if it affects the contents, she is eager to see what happens as she takes a sip.

Ane was still thinking about the face-knocker on the door —and wondering if it gets lonely out there without anyone to talk to, or if it enjoys watching the people going by— so it is not much of a surprise that her attention is drawn to a face-mask. It is hard to tell what the mask is of, it seems to be fluid in appearance, while still being a solid mask. It feels ... tricky? Yeah. Which is the sort of thing that could be directly useful to her line of work.

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• † 'Sixth Sense', or 'the third eye', or 'wizards sight', or any of a number of other names is not truly 'sight'. It is a hard to describe combination of all the senses, while, at the same time, being nothing like any of them.

"Ane." Ane says, turning and bowing. "Thank you for seeing me, Master Thet." She does not know if the casual greeting and introduction was an invitation to drop the honorific, or if calling him 'master' would be wrong before he takes on such a role, or if he was just being friendly.

"The tea? It's great." Ane says. Everything is a little sweet for her palate, unaccustomed as she is, but it is delicious and Ane takes another sip to cover her nerves.

Ane does not know that any lies would be revealed by the tea, so she makes no special effort in that regard.

"You have a beautiful home." She says. "With so many magical things." If Thet is watching her eyes —which he might be for the tea glow— he would notice that they linger on the enchanted items and brush over the mundane ones.

Ane does not know how to broach the topic of tutoring, so she opts for the direct approach, as is her wont.

"I was hoping to learn from you." She says. "Zhad recommended you as my first choice to further my education."

'Cousin'? Ane wonders, not sure if that is a literal relation or a casual appellation of endearment. She files that away for later if it becomes useful.

'Passwall', that sounds like a thieves' tool. Ane notes, suspecting she came to the right place.

Is this a test? She wonders. All those big words? Ane reads as much as she can, but still has to guess from the context clues what some of them mean. "The floating is just something I have always done." She admits. "My parents tried to hide it, but it just happens."

Ane thinks about holding back, she really wants this scholarship, so she decides to be open about both her other magics. "As does this:" She makes a gentle gesture with her hands, spreading them apart slowly and reveals a perfect recreation of the knocker on Thet's door, that still being on her mind.

"But I understand your hesitancy." She says. "These tricks don't equate to being able to learn. But I want to learn more. I scoured every library and book I could find, but I have only been able to find one spell..." She goes for broke, reaching into her shoulder bag and selecting the one special notebook —among many— and shyly shows it to Thet. "It is a spell to make people sleep." She says, trying to keep the boasting out of her voice. "Very useful for avoiding fights." She assumes Thet knows what she means by that.

Ane glows a little at the thought of bringing value to this arrangement. It had not occurred to her that one could trade spells, this opens opens up all sorts of opportunities and this information is valuable in and of its own.

Charm is a spell Ane has heard or... and she is not at all sure she should approve. Messing with people's minds seems like a slippery slope... but it is tempting. But then Boon allows her to help her friends, which is what she always tries to do anyway, and Disguise is exactly what she was looking for in order to try avoid recognition.

It is hard to make such a choice. Ane tells herself that there will be opportunities learn more later, but she is not in the habit of counting her fish before they are in the boat.

She readily agrees to the spell trade. "What sort of services would we be talking about?" She enquires. "And..." She hesitates. "... could I, possibly, you know, read some of your books." She knows that people are possessive of their books and many won't loan them out, but she could come here. "Or could you advise me where I could find more to read? And, do people sell spells?"