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

[cardistry]

"Hey, didn't I say I'd do that?" he muses. "One to make moving around as easy as flying?"

[incanted]

"I think so, yeah. I'd say it'd wind up being like moving in dreams, but I fall over in my dreams, sometimes in front of my sixth grade biology class while holding a tray of muffins."

[cardistry]

"Awwww," he giggles.

[incanted]

"Is there a reason you should invent it and not me? Will that make it mana-cheaper or something?"

[cardistry]

"It'll be mana-cheaper if I put it on upkeep like I am with Safety and Flight," he says. "Who invents it probably won't make much of a difference. But I feel like I've halfway got an idea of how it should work and I'm not sure you do."

[incanted]

"I do not," Bella agrees, scuffing a divot into the orange sand at her feet with one shoe.

[cardistry]

"Yeah. And I don't think it's the kind of thing I could explain properly. I just - it seems like there could be a spell that made it so that every way you can move works like flying, so you get that detailed control and feedback, you know? The only thing is I worry that it would be mana-intensive if you tried to do it on your own."

[incanted]

"Two questions about that. One, if you do it, does that give you weird sensory details about how I am moving, and two, if you ever decide to fuck off to wherever without me after all, and I can't do it alone, am I going to remember how to move the normal way even as well as I do now or am I going to be a sack of cement?"

[cardistry]

"I have no idea if you're going to turn into a sack of cement," he says. "It's... kind of getting less and less likely that I'll fuck off to wherever without you, though. I don't know about the weird sensory details, I haven't done the spell yet."

[incanted]

"Maybe it's worth trying for just a little bit to see about sensory stuff, and then if they're within okay parameters I do some math about likelihood of cement-sackhood and likelihood of fucking off?"

[cardistry]

"Sure," he says. "Okay. So we want a spell that gives you better movement control, but doesn't copy me specific feedback even when I'm hooked in, is that about right?"

[incanted]

"Right."

[cardistry]

"Okay," he says. "Why don't we do some other stuff and I can think it over while you're sleeping sometime? I'm still not all the way there, I don't think."

[incanted]

"Sure. I think sandcastles was next." She muses over incantations. "There is really no way to command sand to form itself into a castle that doesn't sound silly, is there?"

[cardistry]

"Nope," says Brilliance.

[incanted]

"Oh well. I will sound silly for the sake of doing magic." She designs a sandcastle in her head, something fairly simple she can completely visualize, and aims Brilliance at some yellow sand. "Sand, form up into a castle and stay there!"

[cardistry]

The sand forms up into a castle, and stays there.

This one takes a lot of fine control in the 'doing' stage, more than making glass and much more than just sorting sand into a rainbow.

[incanted]

Bella pays close, devoted attention. She's glad she picked a simple castle.

"Is this taking ongoing mana to stay up?" she asks.

[cardistry]

"It's kind of... tapering off," he says. "There, it's not drawing anymore."

[incanted]

Bella walks up to the castle and pokes it gently to see how it's holding together.

[cardistry]

A little bit of tower crumbles away where she pokes it, but most of the structure stands firm.

[incanted]

"Huh. It doesn't feel wet or anything, it's just hanging out. Neat."

[cardistry]

"Yeah, pretty cool," says Brilliance. "Matter manipulation is supposed to be tough stuff."

[incanted]

"So am I a genius or are you just throwing a lot of mana at the problem or what?"

[cardistry]

"No, it's not takes-a-lot-of-power tough, it's takes-a-lot-of-attention tough," he says.