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.

Comments

[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."

[incanted]

"I command a sweet potato to exist!" Bella attempts.

[cardistry]

It still doesn't work.

"Huh," Brilliance repeats. "Okay. It could work, there's a spell trying to happen there, but you're just not quite pulling it off. Do you wanna figure out why, or try something else?"

[incanted]

"I wanna figure out why, I've only tried this twice, that's too early to give up," laughs Bella, "what do I try next?"

[cardistry]

"I'm not totally sure this will make anything better," says Brilliance, "but maybe a long-form incantation that is more specific about the sweet potato being food?"

[incanted]

"Specific about it being food like how? Also does anything happen if an incantation is false, like if I say 'I want to eat a sweet potato' when actually I want you to eat a sweet potato?"

[cardistry]

"I'm not sure exactly," he says, "like I said, I'm going out on a limb here. I don't think a false incantation makes a difference as long as it doesn't confuse you about what you're trying to do with the spell."

[incanted]

Bella nibbles her lip, then goes ahead and tries: "I want to eat a sweet potato."

[cardistry]

"...Okay," says Brilliance. "So what I'm getting here is, the spell's not coming together because you don't have a good enough feel for how it should work. My best guess is if you work on easier spells that have to do with matter manipulation, and get those down pretty good, and then come back and try some simple conjuring and work up from there, it'll work much better."

[incanted]

"Okay, matter manipulation like - sorting the sand by color, or making colorful sandcastles, or melting it into colorful glass? Can you be more specific?" asks Bella, bouncing on her toes.

[cardistry]

Brilliance laughs.

"I'd go with sorting, then glass, then sandcastles, I think. And cast through me, you'll use less mana and I can analyze the spells easier."

[incanted]

"Is there anything to casting through you besides intending to?"

[cardistry]

"Nope! You've already done it a bunch. It should actually be easier to cast through me than otherwise, when you're holding me in this form."

[incanted]

"Okay. Do you suppose I can make a general organize-the-stuff-I-have-in-mind-by-the-criteria-I-have-in-mind spell, or should I come up with an incantation I'm not going to want to use again later that will only do colorful sand?"

[cardistry]

"I think long-form incantations are our friend here again," he says. "They're more flexible. Tell the sand you want it to sort itself. Uh, they tend to be kind of poetic, but I don't think that's actually a requirement except that it maybe makes them easier to remember."

[incanted]

"I should be writing these down," Bella decides, and she catches her notebook up to what has already been tried. Then she considers, and writes, and says aloud:

"Sand, please arrange yourself into a rainbow!"

[cardistry]

Radiating out from Bella in a wave, the top inch or so of sand lifts into the air and settles back down sorted by hue, with red to her left sweeping through orange, yellow, green, blue, and finally various purples all the way on her right. The edges of the sorted patch fade back into the multicoloured sand; the wave of colour-sorting dies down about a hundred feet away.

There is definitely a feel to this spell that's different from the smaller, simpler, more focused spells she's been casting so far.

[incanted]

"Feels - interesting," muses Bella. "I might have to start making up words for spell-feelings. But hey! Look! Rainbow sand."

[cardistry]

"Rainbow sand," Brilliance agrees. "Pretty cool, huh?"

[incanted]

"Very. Glass next? Long-form incantation for that too? We're not shy on mana sorting that much sand, are we?"

[cardistry]

"Go for it! We've got plenty."

[incanted]

Bella focuses on a circle of some of the green sand right in front of her. "Melt and become clear glass without getting hot," she orders it.