universal star visitor brilliant start!

[incanted]

Eventually Bella and Lexi go to bed - they have to coordinate this; Bella's a reasonably sound sleeper but Lexi's not, so if Bella goes to sleep first Lexi won't be able to drop off with all the random nouns and if Bella goes to sleep second Lexi will wake up when she's trying to sneak around. They get up, and they get ready for school.

+Morning, Brilliance,+ says Bella while she's brushing her teeth.

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[cardistry]

"Oh, cool," says Brilliance, as a faint mana-coloured shimmer settles onto Bella's skin.

[incanted]

"Something unusual about how that worked?" Bella asks, looking at the pretty shimmer. "Ooh, I'm shiny."

[cardistry]

"I've never seen anything like it!"

He shifts to staff form and glides closer.

[incanted]

"Did you not expect it to work?"

[cardistry]

"I was thinking of it differently than how it hapened."

[incanted]

"In some complicated technical sense or what? Also, how much of my mana is this drawing?"

[cardistry]

"...Some," he says. "More than flying. Want me to work it up into something I can maintain for you?"

[incanted]

"Yeah, that'd be swell - and weren't you going to figure out percentages?"

[cardistry]

"It's harder than I thought," he says. "I don't see it as numbers, I just feel it. ...Could you pick me up? I feel weird just hanging here. And I can get a closer look at the spell if we're in contact."

[incanted]

She plucks staff-Brilliance out of the air and props him on her shoulder.

[cardistry]

Brilliance is quiet for a moment, his spiral grooves glowing faintly in all the colours of his mana.

Then Bella's shimmer brightens, wavers, and settles back down.

"Okay," he says, "there. With me hooked in, it's draining slower than you replenish."

[incanted]

"Will that still be true if I start flying?"

[cardistry]

"It will if I'm hooked into the flying too," he says.

[incanted]

"Cool. Let's go see some colorful sand."

[cardistry]

His signature counter-rotating circle-pentagram-star appears on the floor, brightens steadily for about a second, and then emits one soft radiant burst of light.

And they are standing on a vast flat expanse of glittering sand that reflects the very Earthlike setting sun in millions of colours.

[incanted]

"Oh, this place is pretty," marvels Bella.

[cardistry]

"I know, I love it!" says Brilliance.

[incanted]

"I wanna fly around, can you hook into that without jacketing me?" Bella asks.

[cardistry]

"Sure, Flight," he says casually. The sprays of mana feathers appear at Bella's heels without the accompanying sense of effort.

[incanted]

She rockets into the sky, whooping.

[cardistry]

Brilliance giggles.

[incanted]

Eventually she calms down and lands in the pretty sand and consults her list of things. "Okay, I bet you want me to prioritize seeing if I can conjure food, that'll solve a certain quandary you have if I can."

[cardistry]

"Yeah, that'd be awesome," he agrees.

[incanted]

"Hmm. I might as well start with sweet potatoes," Bella laughs. "People mostly eat them cooked, but I don't even know if I can conjure them raw, so I'll try that first."

She envisions a sweet potato. She wishes one to exist.

"Sweet potato!" she intones.

[cardistry]

It does not work.

"Huh, that was weird," says Brilliance. "I think it needs a long-form incantation. Try it again, but with a full sentence, something where you could substitute something else for 'sweet potato' and it'd still sound like sense."