The Amell Legacy: Transgressions

[Marian Hawke]

"Here," Marian says, pushing the book at Varric, her finger saving a page. "Take a look."

[Varric]

Looking amused, Varric tosses a look at Helene that says very clearly, 'oh yeah, you didn't impress on her at all, nope, not a bit.' reaching out, the dwarf grabs a stool and brings it close to him. "Let's take a look yeah?"

[Marian Hawke]

Marian nods, flipping open the book onto the counter. It's clear that the script itself is new, some sort of mash-up between the Celestial script and the Elven, but the punctuation doesn't make sense either, some of it clearly made up from whole cloth. The letter frequency patterns don't seem to match up to anything Varric can identify at first glance, though he'd have to sit and pore over it to make sure. Is it written top to bottom or left to right? Or right to left? Hard to tell, the lines are perfectly even. 

[Varric]

"Oh yeah, this should be perfect," Varric murmurs. "Tip for later?" he adds, looking up at Marian. "Not going to be for a while now, but eventually you're going to be skilled enough to not need to watch every step of most brews. Can't double up because trying to imbue more than one brew or item at a time is a good way to de-magic yourself for a few days. Or worse. So having an entirely mundane side-project that won't be hurt if you have to jump off to get back to the brew in an instant? Very valuable. My preference is accounting or decryption."

[Marian Hawke]

She hesitates, then nods. "I can do math in my head and still cast from a scroll," she says, slowly. "Is that the same sort of thing?"

[Varric]

Varric turns his head to study her curiously. "What kind of math?" he asks casually. Really, really wish I'd been able to get a hold of that test before we left.

[Marian Hawke]

"Um. I usually do exponents, but sometimes I've done algebra problems from a textbook. Busywork, nothing too complicated."

[Varric]

"So not finding the range or anything like that?" Varric leans back. "Seeks?"

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene's pencil flies across the page. "This is highly irregular," Helene points out. "This one knows that Apprentice Marian often does math in her mind, but not during spellcasting. This one is impressed. Does Apprentice Marian conduct such experiments for the sa--"

[Marian Hawke]

"Yes," she cuts her master off. "That's why. It's not all that weird ,is it?"

[Varric]

"Impressive," Varric corrects her. "The word you want is 'impressive.' And yes, it is."

[Marian Hawke]

She blinks. "It.... is?"

[Varric]

"Marian, there are profesional wizards, adventures with a dozen or more questions under their belt, that can't walk and cast at the same time. And you're doing lower-mid-level maths." A beat. "And unless I'm mistaken, you've no formal training?"

[Marian Hawke]

"I mean, shy of school in Draslina and studying under Helene? But um, I didn't go to Wizard school or anything. I can only do a little."

[Varric]

"Yeah, sorry, I did mean arcane training, not academic. So yeah, brilliant."