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]

...they're gonna hand her off to the receptionist! These are not wizard questions.

The receptionist says that one normally has a job - Odette totally has all the job she wants! Lots of job! - and uses the proceeds from same to pay for a place to live and food and stuff. She looks like she's past the age which, for humans, signifies the end of the nation of Corenta's interest in your education, but she could take adult education classes to fill in gaps and maybe go to a university if she wants. Corenta does not need to know every time you enter Corenta, you just need to behave while you're here. An abridged writeup of local laws that may not be commonsensical is available at the board of tourism. Corenta taxes land value and savings but not income or sales. Currently Odette's money is in the form of IOUs from the wizard company, but once she acquires it in liquid form (they will be happy to help her open a bank account) if she doesn't spend or invest it fast enough it will be slowly taxed away. If she wants to buy land that will also oblige her to pay a tax on a twice annual basis.

[powerispain]

Odette would like to know what other long-term problems the world has besides people dying of old age. She would like to remain enrolled, if long-distance, in her university back home, or else that would appeal.

[alicornucopia]

The world has an array of geopolitical problems but that's probably not what she means. Uh, lights can't heal themselves? The wizards will be happy to make arrangements for sending things to and fro for her to remain in touch with her school.

[powerispain]

Healing lights: presumably a thing she can do. ...Can wizards not do that? Why not?

[alicornucopia]

Wizard magic is just not super good at things as simple conceptually and difficult technically as healing, and besides, there are lights and witches.

[powerispain]

Explain witches.

[alicornucopia]

Witches make potions. Those work on lights fine and are the front line for dealing with ailments in lights.

[powerispain]

"If wizardry can't heal, what does it do besides interworld stuff? ...And teleporting. And--a ton of other stuff, presumably. But not healing, really?"

[alicornucopia]

Wizardry does lots of things. Would she like to look at their catalog? It has lists of services they offer. Conception spells, appliances, teleportation on demand to their other sites, translation, enchanting scoots, detecting mage potential, sunscreening for vampires or just people who are outside a lot, wards, conjuration and banishment, lie detection. There are spells that will fix broken bones, that's fairly simple, but healing-in-general not so much.

[powerispain]

Well if they could do healing the way mages do it they would be able to de-age people, wouldn't they.

[alicornucopia]

Apparently! Lights don't de-age people.

[powerispain]

How do lights work, exactly?

[alicornucopia]

This one wizard is also a light. He cups his hands and gets a little ball of gray-white sparks hovering there. If somebody touches it they will be healed of things.

[powerispain]

Okay but how does being healed of things work.

[alicornucopia]

...you touch the thing and then you are not diseased or injured anymore. If there's something more complicated wrong with you they need to send you to somebody with training this light doesn't have.

[powerispain]

So it just burns out pathogens and closes wounds? Is cancer a more complicated thing? Will a light reset a bone or do you risk requiring rebreaking if you touch it while your leg's a funny angle?

[alicornucopia]

Lights heal cancer just fine without complications. It'll set a bone but if it's healed wrong you do have to rebreak; same with scar tissue.

[powerispain]

So what counts as complicated, then?

[alicornucopia]

Things you have to reinjure. They train midwives separately. Anything embedded in an injury, that's specialized work.

[powerispain]

Huh. So there's no skill element at all to the actual magic part.

[alicornucopia]

Not for lights, no.

[powerispain]

Weird. ...Does it hurt?

[alicornucopia]

...no?

[powerispain]

Magic that doesn't hurt to do. Wow.

[alicornucopia]

Wizardry hurts to do and the elemental kinds of magic hurt to get but lights and sorcerers and witches do not have this problem.