By noon the next day she made it through a lonely forest trail to a mining-focused settlement. Nearly everybody in sight seemed to be one of the reptilian Kobold folk. Their scales came in at least half a dozen colors and ranged from nearly salamander-smooth to an armored grid she could play chess on. "Chess, yet another thing to invent."

She saw the hues of various minerals in the stone and soil of the hillsides, and wondered what uses they might have. A geology degree was just one of the many things she lacked. If she had become that Kobold miner on the list of identities she'd been offered... well, it would've been a different life, and she wouldn't have met the friends and family she had now.

A tower shimmering with mirrors dazzled her during a short flight, even through her cool goggles. She landed nearby and looked it over. A focusing apparatus for a smelter. Neat, though she doubted it'd collect useful heat without lots of magic. The building stood as tall as the Two Hoots.

She knocked on the door. Then staggered backward in pain; the metal knocker had zapped her! She was down a few points of Health.

Then the door opened. A Kobold in a kilt stood there, his scratched and worn silver scales seeming to reflect hidden firelight. "What now?"

Selen discreetly shook her stinging hand and attempted to bow with the other wing. "My name is Selen, sir, and I'm a student of magic. I was hoping you might deign to teach me something."

"Didn't I already?"

Selen considered. "Expect a wizard to be well defended?"

"Something like that. Hmm, I have a little time. Come in."

The first floor of the tower held a laboratory of powders, bottles, burners and shakers. She said, "I'm jealous! You're doing alchemy here? I have just one level each of Alchemist and Mage so far."

"Planning to do both?"

"I'm not sure yet. I've created a form of rubber and I'm testing a theory that there's a set of physical elements comparable to the magical ones. So far I decomposed water with electricity to make a flammable gas."

The old lizard opened his toothy jaw and paused, then laughed. "One of my old tricks is exposed! Ah, it was bound to happen eventually. And you did that at first level?"

"I did, sir. I just got accepted into the Grandbridge Knowledge Society but there are guilds controlling how much I can learn."

"Which is why I'm not a member of those. So they let a young one join? Surprising."

"I'm told there was some debate."

"Have you taken full advantage of the Society library?"

"Can't say I have, since there isn't enough time to read it all. But I've learned the basics of wind enough to fly, and lightning enough to send a controlled zap through liquid, and enough force magic to push things a bit. I've studied significant healing but don't have a skill point to show for it."

Ralator raised one eyeridge. "How do you know much about that without the skill point?"

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"The System isn't everything, and it's not the same thing as real understanding. I... I know things that don't fit neatly into it."

"Such as?"

Selen shut her eyes. "When examining a wounded victim, check first for airway, breathing and circulation, the ABCs. I guess that doesn't translate. The patient needs to be checked for possible spine injuries before moving him. As a paramedic your role is to be a first responder who stabilizes people long enough for professionals to arrive."

The wizard frowned, puzzled. "That isn't the Healing Magic skill."

"No, it's medical training. I'm thinking back to the use of tourniquets to stop bleeding in emergencies and splints for broken bones, but there's a lot I don't know about infection."

[Skill gain: First Aid (Wits).]

Selen blinked. "And I just got a formal First Aid skill from reviewing what I know, somehow."

"Better to be denied the prize a while and keep learning, than to get it quickly and stop. You're an odd one, then, studying several subjects like that at once."

"Magic and medicine and alchemy? They're all related. I want to know how this world works."

"And you don't seem to be some idle noble's child, or at least you're not dressed like one. What is that colorful thing you're wearing?"

She tugged at her sash. "My own invention, sir. Anyone can make it with the right dyes."

"Hmm. I can't place your accent, not that I can tell silly birds apart very well."

"I'm from the courier family in Grandbridge, lately, but I'm adopted."

"There is some odd bit of Winter about you," Ralator mused, and Selen had no idea what he meant. He shouted upstairs, "Zat! I haven't eaten today, I think. Fetch the other students and we will remedy this."

#

The wizard's assistant ushered her to the local pub, a dimly lit place called the Crowned Sun where tattered banners and worn spears lined the walls. Ralator held forth there at a large corner table, discussing the magic of the elements. Most of the class were youngsters eager to earn their first few levels, putting Selen in good company.

"The bird here is a good example," Ralator said in the middle of his lesson. "Greyfeather, demonstrate your wind magic."

Put on the spot, Selen tried her basic spell that held motes of swirling air between her hands like captive bees. She held it, watching her Mana meter tick down.

The wizard said, "Each of us is better attuned to some elements than others. As an Aves, she takes most naturally to wind. But none of us is innately limited. Girl, have you ever used the stone element?"

"Not successfully."

Ralator snapped his clawed fingers and pointed to one of his students. "Green, coach her through that one."

A green-scaled Kobold frowned. "She's an outsider." This one was a little higher-pitched and Selen took her for a girl.

"All the more challenge, then. Have you got the skill to teach outside your own kind?"

Selen's fellow student impatiently gestured for Selen to hold out her hands, then did the same. The Kobold concentrated and made a flickering ghost of a pebble appear. Then several more in a constellation. "Like this."

Ralator hissed. "Did I just say 'like this' to you?"

"Then, try to notice the weight of the raw mana. Focus on that aspect. Bring it forward."

Selen concentrated. Mana was a vague thing by default, hardly real, a mutable idea.

"Dream stuff," she said.

The green one said, "Master Ralator says there's no fundamental difference between the types. So focus on the most earthy feel of it."

Selen squinted into her spell, and tried to make that solidity and weight more prominent. Other potentials like the tingly vibration of sound or the chill of ice faded away as the spell decided what to be. It flickered and turned to sparkling dust and gravel that slipped through her fingers onto the table.

"That's right," said the wizard. "Attempt all eight versions every so often even if you fail, and build up your flexibility. That's more important in the long run than raw power."

One of the other students said, "But you can blow things up!"

"That was a long time ago."

Selen knew, now, that whatever fireball spell Ralator might know was aided by hydrogen. She picked up a pebble. "If things like fire and light are types of energy, then isn't this different? And it's a specific kind of stone, but which? And the force magic I tried seemed to work with this neutral magic I start with, so does force really count as just another element?"

Ralator chuckled. "You're not the first to have these questions, but it's good that you'd ask. For now it's best to focus on the basics and save the advanced theory for later."