i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[nonbird]

[Not yet,] he decides. [What exactly are you shadowy-ily magically conspiring to do?]

[self_composed]

[I want to take over the world,] Bella says. [And make it behave itself. For example, at some point, when I can either do it inconspicuously or no longer need to be discreet, I intend to eradicate malaria. I'm lying low for the time being specifically because I don't know where all the world's mints and natively magic people are or what they are doing, but whatever they are doing does not meet my exacting standards.]

[nonbird]

[...That is a good conspiracy,] says Lazarus. [I like that conspiracy. I am on board with that conspiracy.]

[self_composed]

[I'm so glad,] says Bella merrily.

[nonbird]

[My sinister experiments are probably just going to amount so sitting still in the same room with both of you for a while,] he says. [I'm really not a very exciting person. Well, and I might want to watch someone make a coin, but not, ah... recreationally.]

[self_composed]

[He doesn't really have a non-recreational setting. I can make small ones non-recreationally if that would be more comfortable for you, though. What does your current boring job involve? I can help you with a cover story so Kolya doesn't wonder what you're up to - you can "apply for a job" that requires you to "sign a lot of confidentiality agreements". And then if you'd rather hang out with my conspiracy than do what you're doing, the "job" can hire you and require relocation.] Quotation marks appear in the text channel where appropriate.

[nonbird]

[Well, I wouldn't want to get too far from Kolya. Is this yours?] he wonders. [Did you invent multimedia communicative telepathy?]

[self_composed]

[Yes! Yes I did. Designing powers is fun,] Bella says. [Bring him with you if you like and can explain why and he wants to come, we have access to money to provide from your fictitious job with a secretive wee startup and it's not like it would be hard to get more.]

[nonbird]

[I also kind of like my current city. How many powers have you designed?] he wonders. [How many do you have?]

[self_composed]

[Uh, pardon, let me count,] Bella says. She counts. [Are we counting magical permanent hexagon-level powers, or also mundane things that I pentagoned myself good at for various reasons? And the two-layered one that I doubled up 'cause I was paranoid?]

[nonbird]

After a moment of stunned silence,

[Yes.]

[self_composed]

[Minting, plus 17 other magic superpowers if you count the doubled one as two things, and one dozen non-language persistent uses of pentagons, variously frivolous, and twenty-one languages.]

[nonbird]

[I really want to look at you,] says Lazarus. ['Look', I mean. I can't even imagine what a stack of powers like that would look like. I've never seen one before.]

[self_composed]

[You shall just have to come visit me, then. How much do you like your current city? Because transit can be magicked, I'm just a little worried that Kolya will follow you to work one day and you won't notice.]

[nonbird]

[Well, if I really seriously join your magical conspiracy, I'm going to have to tell Kolya,] he says. [No two ways about that.]

[self_composed]

[That's probably fine eventually, I just have to be comfortable with telling him too before he gets all up in my secrets,] Bella says. [I would also really not like him to be able to unobtrusiveness at me, so I would want your help designing a workaround.]

[nonbird]

[No,] says Lazarus. [Several kinds of no. Native powers always beat nonnative ones, for one thing, so it would be impossible, and he'd rather never be in the same room with you than not be able to escape your attention, so: no.]

[self_composed]

[I can also work with the not being in the same room option. I've never been in a room with you before,] Bella points out, [and yet here I am, telling you all the things. I did not know that about native powers trumping. That is interesting.]

[nonbird]

[He probably also wouldn't like you to 'boo' at him,] he adds.

[self_composed]

[One time got it out of my system.]

[nonbird]

[Well, if you decide to talk to him with your magical Skype, can I warn him first?]

[self_composed]

[Yes. We usually call it a "brainphone"; I didn't install video capabilities,] Bella says. [But I'd want to email him first.]

[nonbird]

[Okay,] says Lazarus.

[self_composed]

[At any rate, wanna come for a visit? We can handle commuting. There's already a magic door between school and my hometown. I'd just need to know where another such device ought to lead.] Pause. [Hang on, let me just actually spot-check to see if you are being watched.]

Pentagon goes. Checking, checking...

[nonbird]

Lazarus is currently not being directly observed by any means, magical or mundane, that Bella's pentagon can detect.

[Well?]