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Walking back home, Russet Raifort’s mind drifts away from science for the first time that day and switches tracks to what most people would consider far more exciting/terrifying: Meeting Kudzu Carvi and having him read their mind.
Honestly, they’re almost disappointed. They let the notorious Kudzu Carvi, the record-breaking star mage with a kill count in the double digits, into their head… and it turns out, he’s actually pretty chill.
To be fair, the whole “unprecedented magical power” thing is even cooler than they thought it would be. Even if they didn’t have their scientific equipment, they would have had a great time, because Kudzu/Kale’s magic is a hell of a show. Sure, they might actually end up with vision damage if he doesn’t learn to tone down the brightness, but it would totally be worth it.
But they were secretly hoping for some sort of sadistic, sexy evil sorcerer, and Kale Romarin is clearly just some guy. He’s socially awkward. Polite. Always defers to the government mages. His untransformed outfit suggests he dresses to match his dog, which — okay, that’s pretty cute.
He was literally doing telepathy on Russet (from a distance, never touching them at all, which, yeah, they knew about his powers, but it’s one thing to hear about it and another thing to see it) and he just used it like the “share screen” function on a video call! If they were able to see into someone else’s head, they would definitely have at least peeked at their thoughts.
Look, scientists are naturally nosy, okay? And obviously they would try to resist the temptation to get all their questions answered honestly, but they know their limits.
Kale being himself is great for the project, sure. It would be a lot harder if they had to work around someone who kept trying to cross boundaries and/or kill them. (Russ miiight be speaking from experience here. That one group project with Marula Sheaver in sophomore year was… certainly interesting.) But it’s kind of a let-down.
Maybe for their next project, they should study Magical Alfhild.