I told Mirise that I would look at some of the more scholarly students' writing on enchanting wood for shipbuilding. This area of study could be quite fruitful, given the archipelago's seafaring culture.
However, I think her insistence on pushing her students into this field, and her repeated queries to me about arcane treatments for wood has a deeper purpose. I don't believe her interest stems from the fact that we are an island society with a long history of shipbuilding, or that making better vessels should always be a priority.
More likely, she has some branch of House Dufort pushing for this. Mirise, though a talented mage, is too tied to politics and has ambitions of her own. Discovering the secret to building better ships would be an immensely profitable and powerful enterprise. That she thinks I will just hand over any information in support of this like some doddering old hermit, nattering away in his tower, shows a remarkable lack of understanding on her part.
