Finders Keepers

[all_too_familiar]

Sometimes witches have powers before they turn. But this is rare, uncommon.

More often, a potential witch displays almost nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just, say, a little more skill with people, a little more natural charisma. An extra dose of something that could almost be called luck, if one were paying attention and on the lookout for witches.

There is one such maybe-potential, right over there. He's not from around here, but he is fluent in Italian and French and German and he professes that English is his first language and laughs when people call him a liar because of his perfect accent. He might not be the most powerful, but a polyglot witch could be useful for something. And who knows, maybe there's more to it.

Maybe someone would care to find out.

Comments

[taste_tester]

Boop. "Think you can do arbitrary intersections or just the one?"

[all_too_familiar]

"Let me test it."

Understand mate bond/in heavy mourning?

It's tricky and he has to push, it's not as easy as just looking for one, he slips the first time he tries it and just has a brief overlap, but his second try he gets it to go.

"They're more difficult, I slipped a bit and just had a brief overlap instead of both of them going the first time, but I got it on the second."

[taste_tester]

Boop. "Maybe it'll smooth out if you try more things."

[all_too_familiar]

Nod.

He tries more things.

It's not easy, but he can start consistently not slipping if he keeps pushing at this. ... Clearly he needs to practice at it more, but that's doable, he can practice at it more.

"I can make it stop slipping but it's still difficult to do. I think I'll need to practice at it a lot."

[taste_tester]

"Practice is very important," Addy nods.

[all_too_familiar]

Nod.

"Yes, magic teacher. Is there an - ideal amount of practice that's best?"

He's thinking specifically of an ideal workout routine, actually. He vaguely recalls that this was a thing.

(Funny, he didn't remember his last name. Or his sister's name. Human memories are so bizarre.)

[taste_tester]

"Depends on the person. I am getting a one hour twice a day vibe from you, and my vibes maybe expected to be unusually accurate this afternoon."

[all_too_familiar]

"I can do one hour twice a day," he says agreeably. "Hell, it'll even be easy, I like my power, it's fun to play with."

[taste_tester]

"Lovely! Are you going to stay local for the time being?"

[all_too_familiar]

He actually would like to go find his sister and ask if she'd like to have a witchly teacher.

"I can stay a little while longer if you think it'll help, I'd rather not do something that might permanently stunt my magic, but my coven's probably going to start missing me soon."

[taste_tester]

"Oh, I'm sure you can find me easily whenever you start to plateau. No need to alarm your covenmates. The risk is that you'll start to find the existing avenues of exploration boring and you won't do your hour twice a day."

[all_too_familiar]

Nod.

"If I get bored and try a different avenue of exploration, would that hurt, too?"

[taste_tester]

"Only if it's a poorly chosen one."

[all_too_familiar]

"Poorly chosen like what?"

[taste_tester]

"Oh, you're not going to be able to sort anyone by blood type. Probably wouldn't be able to get there even if I'd caught you earlier."

[all_too_familiar]

Snort.

"Yeah, it's too personality based to ever do anything like that. I see the pattern of logic for getting it to work now, trying to bash it into doing what I want won't work."

[taste_tester]

"Yes. Although some witches can pivot. They get thing A, and teach it to do thing B, and then stretch all the way to thing C which is like B but not A."

[all_too_familiar]

He nods.

"Good to know. I'll see if I can pivot."

[taste_tester]

"You might be able to get more precise location information. And you might be able to sort by absence of feelings - you currently get people who have strong opinions about things, but sometimes it might be expedient to have it the other way 'round. And I think you could definitely learn to pick up more detail faster from a cold start."

[all_too_familiar]

"Yeah. I think I also want to see if I can talk an 'or' out of the intersecting search function, eventually."

[taste_tester]

"Possible! Might be easier to pivot from the absence-of-feelings thing. Other conjunctions: not both, exclusive or."

[all_too_familiar]

Nod. "It'll be fun. Playing with powers is fun."

[taste_tester]

"I know, right?"

[all_too_familiar]

Smile.

....

Hm.

"I am okay with you occasionally showing up and poking me for my power to follow witches if you use my power to also aim for terrible people to eat," he says, because this is a very reasonable thing to ask of her, he thinks.

[taste_tester]

"Suits me fine! Where do you usually hang out? I'll lose your power as soon as I pick up another."