"You want to learn how to do magic? Your probably to old for that now.."
"Depends on how quick a study he is. Other factors contribute as well of course, not everyone has the aptitude for it, and certainly starting from a young age helps but is hardly necessary."
"Looks can deceive," James responded dryly, his tone mostly intended for the stone guy. "I don't know how old you think I am, but you're wrong. I'm... I think it's gotten to three months now. If that's too old, do tell me how you teach an infant magic tricks. Not to mention, I can understand anything, surely I would be able to learn magic too," he said as if it was the most sincere thing he had said yet. To him, there wasn't a thing he could not figure out. Well, apart from people.
He sighed, picking a small vial in his pocket -hand still in the pocket- and rolling the vial between his fingers.
"Regardless, it wasn't a question based on me wanting to learn magic, but rather understanding it. I care more for alchemy than magic tricks either way."
"Let's see, where to start... firstly yes I could improve my ability to see in the dark but that hardly helps the rest of you see, changing the time of day is a considerably more difficult thing and well outside my current abilities, though conjuring daylight itself is fully possible, a glyph is a mark or rune with a specific meaning or purpose, and as for what is magic well that is an entire conversation in and of itself. Suffice to say it is power, the sort which underlies all of reality."
"If it is a conversation in itself, then what better time is it to talk of it now?" No reply, instead people started talking about the glyph again.
"I don't know. This is interesting, but if we don't know what it is and can't decipher that marking on the base we're just wasting time. The blonde kid is working on it."
"Holt. My name is James Holt," James corrected. Hopefully everyone had heard it, so that he didn't need to repeat it ever again to these people. He could have let it go, being called a blonde kid was among the more neutral things he had been called, but he wasn't really a kid... or anything, really, simply James. Himself.
If I'm just not Jonathan, of course.
"And I'm just curious. I don't think it'll do much to help us, being broken and all, but..." He looked towards the people who had started talking about their theories, the gnome's being a bit more founded in knowledge than the other's. But then again, that was just an assumption, perhaps a silly one, given that being unaware of someone -anyone's- magic abilities could be dangerous. Scary, frightening.
He listened in silence as they did speak, not wanting to interrupt. It was intriguing, and he wondered what the purpose of connecting one cairn to another had been, though if they didn't know what cairn it was, or how it worked, then they could work out possible reasons and still have gotten nowhere.
"I don't think I can glean anything more from it, we may as well move on,"
the small mage said, and James tilted his head. "Yeah, I suppose so. Perhaps I'll figure out what it means one day, as long as I remember what it looks like. Besides... I'm more curious about what magic consists of." He looked at the smaller man expecting a reply. It was clear to him that the other could provide some information he could use to understand how everything worked, just a little better.