I can't fix you, but maybe I can still help

[powerispain]

He's trying to kill us--could ruin him--worry about that later--grab your sister and go.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

And Reesa introduces the situation to the receptionist in the local language, and the receptionist calls a wizard, who casts a translation spell on Odette, and Reesa waves and leaves.

"Translation spell provided free of charge. The dragon says you can de-age people?" says the receptionist.

[powerispain]

"Yeah. I've never taken more than a couple decades off someone before, but the principle's the same however much comes off."

[alicornucopia]

"We can find customers interested in this service but it will be challenging to price. The dragon said you need a scry, possibly transworld, on your sister, and then you and she need to go home, possibly transworld?"

[powerispain]

"Um, if she's back home and not already dead it might be most important to get her out of where she is because I came here fleeing a murder attempt."

[alicornucopia]

"All right, so a scry possibly transworld, a summon or call, and two sendings or pushes. Do you want to try dealing in Corenta currency for this or just trade straight across?"

[powerispain]

"I think I'd rather deal in currency. If there's anything left over when it's time to go home I can donate it to charity or something."

[alicornucopia]

"All right..." She rummages in a filing cabinet and produces a price sheet which Odette can magically read. "These are the standard prices for services of that magnitude." There are numbers in a currency with which Odette has no familiarity.

[powerispain]

"I don't really know how much that is. How much would it cost to buy, oh, a novel or a loaf of bread?"

[alicornucopia]

Substantially less than any of these spells!

[powerispain]

"...How difficult are these?" she asks of the services on the price sheet.

[alicornucopia]

"All of those require a fully trained and licensed wizard and a diagram which will take an angle or two to draw out," says the receptionist, "and the transworld items in particular are demanding on channeling capacity."

[powerispain]

"What's channeling capacity?"

[alicornucopia]

"...it's how much power a caster can draw for a single spell."

[powerispain]

"Oh, I see. So..." she looks for the least expensive item on the list. "Maybe about as much as that? Because de-aging people isn't all that hard."

[alicornucopia]

"Irrespective of how far they're being de-aged?" queries the receptionist.

[powerispain]

"I've only done a few decades before but it didn't feel like it was straining anything or anything."

[alicornucopia]

"- have you only de-aged humans?"

[powerispain]

"Dragons don't exist in my world."

[alicornucopia]

"Dragons aren't the only nonhuman species around; I'm wondering about elves, for instance. Corenta is human-majority, but filtering customers for species would be something we'd need to pay attention to."

[powerispain]

"...My first instinct is to offer to try to do it for free for one elf to see if it's the same."

[alicornucopia]

"Is there any risk of side effect or backfire for the subject, either because it is not the same for elves or in general because of caster error?"

[powerispain]

"No, if it's not the same it won't feel the same and I just won't do it."

[alicornucopia]

"We can probably have enough subjects to cover your spell suite before the day's out, but would be delighted to entertain your services beyond that as we source other interest," the receptionist says, "for spending money or other incidentals."

[powerispain]

"I'm not even going to consider long-term commitments until I'm sure my sister's okay but I'm not ruling anything out until then either."

[alicornucopia]

"All right. Would you like a spare caster's office to wait in while I find clients?"