It's 60 Accounting, I think. Since someone's spoiled the sort of numbers.
Lottie's totally alive. I know this because there's stuff -- I haven't done it, but I've heard of it -- that can involve her later.
Anyway, getting magic is totally optional, though there are benefits for getting and training bits of it (I reccomend sense) as early as possible.
Of course, there are also benefits for different subjects, so it's a tricky call...
The number of ways through the game is what excites me about this playthrough -- I tend to be conservative and make somewhat similar choices each time, and I'm hoping other brains will produce blind territory for me.