intelligent nametags

[thaumobabble]

Jane alerts everyone to the existence of a new Bell, the nature of her wives and children, and the presence of her mother-in-law.

She stands ready to move in anyone who wishes to attend this new party.

Glass stands ready to receive them.

Comments

[nonbird]

"Yes!" says Lazarus. "That is me. I am that."

[pleasantsurprise]

"He sees magic, and apparently has better modulation than your specs," Kanim says. "Seeing as he's not clutching his face and yelping."

[thaumobabble]

"Ooh, lucky," says Glass, pulling out her specs but not putting them on. "These things are great for anything native to the world, but all my alts just scream magic, I'd go blind if I tried to look right at them even through one lens at a time."

[nonbird]

"...May I see those?" he asks, blinking in fascination at the specs.

[thaumobabble]

Glass hands them over. She enumerates where all the lenses' magic came from: "Witch spell with-cat, witch spell without-cat, got that out of a wizard staff, this one too, this I got a wizard to cast for me, we've got some reformists in the woods, Tony helped me with this dwarf spell, this was the first royal magic I ever got to work for me after I married Tony and the forest double-counted me, this is a dragon spell, that's a different one, this is elf magic..."

[nonbird]

"Goodness," says Lazarus. "That's a lot of magic."

[thaumobabble]

"You can see why I couldn't pick just one," laughs Glass. "And that's a sorceress bit, and this is a unicorn spell, and this is an adaptation of a fire-witch property, and I have some spare lenses that aren't as useful in my sleeves for specialized applications."

[nonbird]

"I wonder if I could design you a lens that does something similar to my power," he says. "I'm not sure how useful it would be. My power is very me-ish."

[thaumobabble]

"I'd have a look, but I'd have to wish my eyes better and I wouldn't learn much," laughs Glass. "Rose thinks I might get something about all the myriad kinds of local magic when I get an aura. Apparently a lot of us did."

[nonbird]

"Do you want a my-power-ish lens, for all the good it may or may not do you?"

[thaumobabble]

"I'd like one, yeah!"

[nonbird]

Lazarus thinks carefully, and then makes a wish. Glass's specs acquire a new set of lenses.

[thaumobabble]

Glass carefully flips all her existing lenses out of the way, and the new ones into place, and sets the specs on her face.

[nonbird]

Her visual world is now very different.

There's a kind of background fog, very greenish, with spots of flame dotted along the ground. Objects and people only exist insofar as they are magical; Liselen is a silvery-blue glow in the shape of a unicorn, Lazarus himself is layered with complex patterns. Mints show up in their coin colour, as though they are enormous self-minted coins. Enchanters' auras surround them with symbolic representations of their specialties, some very abstract, some perfectly mundane - Jellybean has a corona of candy.

It's all very orderly. Ingot powers appear in this way, the enchanting ability like so, auras like that, witchcraft in yet another. Magic created by wishcoins has a very different aspect from magic created by enchanting, although the details of what exactly each bit of magic does are not always clear.

[thaumobabble]

"Oooh," breathes Glass. "It'll take me a long time to learn to interpret all this, but it's sure pretty."

[nonbird]

"It is! It is very pretty," Lazarus agrees.

[thaumobabble]

"You automatically read the content of this sort of thing?" Glass asks, turning slowly on the spot to get a look at everything.

[nonbird]

"Yes? Sort of. It's a bit - translated," he says. "The original version is much easier for me to figure out, but not completely automatic."

[thaumobabble]

Glass peers closely at his ingot power. "Thank you very much! I hate it when I can't look at magical things - once I ruined a whole set of lenses when I panicked and put them on in the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises and I had to make new ones. I'd probably have kept trying to squint very carefully at all the overbright magic till I'd had to wish myself unblind at least five times without this lens set."

[nonbird]

His ingot power is largely incomprehensible. But it's definitely an ingot power.

"You're welcome!"

[thaumobabble]

Glass inspects Kanim next. "I think thaaaat's the witchwell, thaaaaat's sorcery..." She looks at her marble. "Wow, I have so much to do."

[nonbird]

"I think that's a Bell catchphrase by now," says Lazarus.

[thaumobabble]

"Is it? Well, of course it is," laughs Glass. "This is the best, best day." She turns to Kanim. "Say, have you seen Tony? Ours. Iron."

[pleasantsurprise]

"She's with her alts," says Kanim delicately, smiling faintly. "Introducing herself."

[nonbird]

"Aha," says Lazarus.