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]

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?"

[powerispain]

"That sounds practical."

[alicornucopia]

So the receptionist shows her to somebody's office - apparently they have the day off - and leaves her there with an estimate of half an angle to get ahold of a first client.

[powerispain]

...Less boring than several hours floating in the void of space. Presumably. What's an angle?

[alicornucopia]

It's a unit of time. There are twenty-five of them in a day, and the receptionist casts a time spell to display how quickly the subdivisions of angles go by.

[powerispain]

About half an hour, then. That's fine.

[alicornucopia]

And indeed half an hour later the receptionist shows a little old lady to Odette's temporary office!

[powerispain]

It takes her about ten minutes to get her looking and feeling like she's twenty.

[alicornucopia]

The little old lady is so happy! She hugs Odette and skips off making vague remarks about the boy who looks after her garden.

They find her an elf next. The elf looks sort of like a human except with long pointy ears, white hair, and purple eyes.