"I found out how to duplicate his field when I was visiting his island. I got him to tell me what happened when his field appeared -- he was meditating, apparently, and he fell asleep, and he lucid-dreamed, and when he woke up he noticed himself falling out of his dream into reality. I guess some of his ability to -- to affect his surroundings. To change his world. Came with him.

Man, that sounds so stupid. It's much better when Heidi does it." 

Heidi stopped abruptly in the middle of a pose. 

"Do you want me to?"

"Nope."

"If you're sure." Whee, more dancing. 

"Anyway, I managed to generate my own field and tried to give it to some people, he took exception to that, and now I'm ... sort of ... on the run from his sympathizers. They're not trying to kill me or anything, but they also don't want me to give a field to anyone else."

"Why shouldn't Heidi do it?"

"Why shouldn't Heidi do what?"

"I dunno, you said it sounds better when Heidi does it and she asked if you wanted her to and you said no."

"Oh, she spends a lot of time coming up with theories for how our magic works. But she's distracted now."

"Oh. And what exactly is your magic? I mean, you mentioned meditation and conjuring things that have to stay close to your body, but, uh... I mean, I don't really understand it yet."

"Well, I can conjure any object I can properly visualize -- so, objects where I know how the discrete parts work, on the inside -- and if it stays in my field it can exist there indefinitely. But if it leaves the field, it disappears. 

"I've done experiments with power generation, and it turns out that the energy doesn't disappear. Which is extremely useful, of course. But I can't make energy by itself -- no pure heat or electricity. Oh, and if I make anything that gives off energy, I have to be careful to shield myself from it."

She reaches up to grab a burn on her left arm, faintly embarrassed. 

"Oh, cool. How big is this field? Yours looks barely larger than yourself but you said that guy from your world gave people food?"

"Yeah, I still haven't figured out how he manages to make his bigger so effortlessly. Mine usually extends about 8 centimeters from my skin. I've tried making it bigger -- if both Heidi and I are focusing as hard as we can it gets up to four times that -- but then it resets."

"So you have to actively concentrate to make it grow? You mentioned he found it by meditation, does that help?"

"Yeah, but when I stop concentrating it just -- snaps back. I meditate to maintain the space, too. Heidi or I need to do it every day or else it disappears."

"Hmm... What's the world like? Society? Is it, like, democracies, countries, a single kingdom? How big is the planet? It is a planet, right?"

Mary describes the relative technology level of Earth, circa 2010ish. She mentions things like Wikipedia and cell phones and lists off some countries. 

"Oh, so your world is also an Earth? That's weird. Mine is like that, the year is two thousand and three, what year is it where you're from?"

"2015. Wait, wait, an Earth?"

"Well, I live on a planet that sounds a lot like yours but it's 2003 instead."

"True. I guess -- wait, you were telling me about Earth Aleph, that's why you're not --- weirded out by there being lots of different Earths. Right?"

"We're in a multidimensional bar," he points out, "but yes, being previously acquainted with the concept of many different Earths does help."

"I would think that calling a -- a planet Earth -- wouldn't be exactly common. So if it is multidimensional then it's not grabbing dimensions too far from one another."

"Maybe. Bar did say the door seems to like putting interesting people together, so maybe if people are too different they aren't mutually interesting?"

"That makes sense."

"I wonder if there's any power on your world that would be able to help ours. You mentioned someone with healing powers?"