rix_scaedu

(Hey, filling it in means it's come to your attention and you are thinking about it, which are good things! I imagine writing something like this is similar to programming, in that problems (whether they're called bugs or plot holes) always manage to sneak in somehow, and the trick is in finding and fixing them before they become too big or cause too many other problems. Easier said than done, sometimes!)

It's not something Liavan chose to do, it's just happening.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought. I expect that's a significant part of both the power and danger of curses as opposed to other magic, that you can give it just general terms/intent, and the magic takes it from there - which can cause surprises. Basically, it's less controlled in a way, which means it might do something unexpected, but also allows it to have more power behind it (or it can use it more efficiently), which in turn means it can do more.

Ok, so, a crown would be a significant amount of money to get "for free" (via curse), but isn't really all that much money per se - Liavan probably handles that much or more during a decent market day, it's just that most of it goes out as fast as it comes in, to cover expenses like food and the jars. Once you're well established, you do enough business that the bit that remains builds up fast enough for it to not really be a big problem. Meaning Penden's worry was really more about whether Liavan is well established enough, or can grow her business fast enough, for that to happen - because she wants her to succeed.

Come to think of it, given that bit about dukes picking their people carefully, and this one appearing to have some long-term plans that now involve Liavan, he might even be willing to be lenient for a year or two, if she does run into problems scraping up enough to pay. Especially if she has good reasons for it. However, I don't expect her to have such problems, she seems to have it well in hand, so we may never find out whether this would be the case. (It also depends on what type of person he is, which we know very little about at this point.)

You have some good points there re: money creation. Basically, anyone with enough power to get away with it already have the rights to mint coins anyway, and for others, it would not only be very risky, but unlikely to be worth it due to the costs involved (in both energy and opportunity, not to mention reputation).

This also applies to non-withemasters/mistresses - e.g. a miner and smith could also mint coins, but the same risks and costs apply to them. It's likely that they could get the same or better value by applying their skills in other ways, since indeed, money is only really worth what you can buy with it.

I suppose it could still happen in some circumstances, like a desperate withemaster with a lot of energy and very little time, who needs to buy something in a hurry... But I wouldn't expect that to be in any way common. And I figure they'd still have to be careful, because if the seller figured out they were creating the money themselves, they might refuse to sell. And I'm not sure how much time (if any) they could actually save by creating the money directly instead of selling their skill in other ways, anyway, so it might still not be worth it. (Come to think of it, depending on what it is, they might just create the item directly instead... so... yeah.)

Basically, unlike in the story kelkyag mentioned, in this universe matter creation seems to not be something you can just casually do on a whim - at least for anything significant. Which makes Penden's creation of a cup a fairly impressive display of both skill and energy availability - since she did it on the fly, seemingly casually (while pouring into it, even), and instead of simply fetching another cup. She did admit the result was perhaps not very stable, and a tea cup doesn't really require very much materials, or very specific ones, but still. If nothing else, she showed that she didn't need to save up her magical energy for other things, and would rather spend it than take the time to fetch another cup (or have her daughter do it). Probably in part out of consideration for Liavan, not making her wait, but still.