Depends on the materials. Does he know what a structure mage would need to produce a material?

"A sufficiently precise description and the elements it's made of. I don't know more precisely than that, I'm not educated," says Valanda.

Iri interrupts. "The thing I told you water was made of, before. That kind of description would work."

Ah, thank you.

(So, anything whose structure she knows and anything she actually has on her for Iri to read it off.)

She doesn't know what materials they already have. Do they have rubber? Polyester? Other plastics? Polyester is used for fabrics with some desirable qualities, and there are many kinds of plastic and she won't be able to come up with all of them but it is lightweight and shapeable and waterproof and can be used for containers to keep food fresher and safety devices and minor pleasing items and a large variety of other things (she can list more). Latex? Nitrile?

(Not materials, but by the way do they have pencils? Erasers?) How are they on adhesives? (or do they not need them because of defense magic?) Pain medication?

They have none of those materials!

"We have lots of different writing implements, some that work like you're talking about. Pain medication might be useful but do you know if yours work for more than just humans?"

Well, if he thinks someone might pay them to change that, that is something they can try. Possibly starting with more minor things and such. She is not sure how distribution can be expected to work in this world. She is interested in both 'people in this world gain access to useful materials' and 'they acquire money they need', and if these can be combined sometimes that seems a positive outcome.

(She notes 'better writing implement' as something to acquire with money.)

The pain medication she has isn't strong enough for things like surgery, but is often good for some other pains. She does not know enough about the biology of other species here to even hazard a guess about that.

"We can probably sell the information to a structure mage. What can your materials do that we can't do already?"

She's not sure what exactly they can do already. Presumably defense magic means they already have very good waterproofing, but rubber is still good for things like impact absorption and plastic is lightweight. Polyester, again, is used for fabrics, which has some qualities she doesn't think relate to any of the kinds of magic.

The thing she already has in nitrile and latex are gloves, which they probably don't need for health related procedures because of death magic but are also good for dirty work and for handling some chemicals that are not safe to touch. Latex is also used for condoms, for people who aren't allergic to it; she doesn't know what they're using for those right now. Rubber and some plastics also become more important for electricity, but that's a larger project.

"How much more are they worth given electricity? And how much will electricity be worth?"

She really does not know how to estimate that, especially given everything she still doesn't know about this world. Though the applications won't necessarily be obvious, if that's what he's worried about.

"I'm wondering if it would be better for us to sell the idea of electricity first."

They can do that if he wants. She was considering the benefits of potentially selling something simpler earlier on, but he knows this world far better than her.

Would people be willing to accept a non-exclusive sale? With things this potentially socially major, she doesn't think it would be right to do exclusive. 

"Not right how?"

It means too much pressure on the initial sale, trying to find someone who'd use it to full potential, and trying to price that well when whoever they're selling to won't have much to go on. And it not being used to full potential would be a very large loss, so.

"Yeah, I don't want to leave money on the table either. Can you create some kind of prototype without giving anyone else enough information to copy it? And can you list all the uses for it that you know of?"

Yes to the last one. She can probably manage a very basic miniature generator if she had the materials; she's less sure about anything that actually uses it. Could probably do a model telegraph? Without giving anyone else the information to copy it would be harder.

Also, does he think anyone might be interested in gloves? And what is the state of the art on condoms?

"Gloves could be useful, or something similar for people without hands.

"We don't use the thing you're describing. Death magic can end a pregnancy or cure a disease. I think some defense mages know how to keep people from getting getting pregnant, but I don't. Anavel Sani has a lot of laws that are supposed to keep disease from spreading, all kinds of disease, including the sexual kind. People still get sick but usually they don't spread it around much, it's usually just a few people at a time and the state makes sure they're quarantined and treated. If you can do better than that Anavel Sani will want to make it available. Even if your invention wouldn't sell well they might subsidize it. We'd have to move south to deal with them, you'd run into people who don't speak Hari. Might be worth it. Is it the kind of thing they'll want?"

A convenience of the gloves is that she has them in that form already, though adjustment for those without hands would be needed.

Ah, she sees. She'd been imagining the disease issue was basically solved by death magic, but hadn't thought through the use for abortions. She doesn't know enough about that government. At home, people use condoms for disease risk, and also for if they want to have sex that can result in pregnancy when a relevant partner if fertile (it is more effective in avoiding undesired pregnancies to not do that to begin with, but some people do for various reasons.)

...But people here don't have discerning-sense, does that mean they can't read fertility? 

"It depends on the species. Some people are only fertile part of the year, some people are only fertile at the right age, of course no one can have kids with another species... At home how much does it cost to have as many condoms as you want for a year?"

Do humans here work the same way as humans in her world, with respect to that?

She's not an ideal person to ask about prices but she attempts to make an estimate and transmit it through comparing food prices.

"People will want them at that price but not enough that it's our best way to make money. How hard would it be to make electricity do something that can't be done with magic?"

The price might not match - in her world they're made in factories and shipped across the Empire - but, understood.

She's still not sure all of what magic does - it clearly does a lot. The problem with electricity is that it does do a lot (if possibly less that is not already being done, here), but a lot of the uses are very effort front-loaded. Which is part of the reason she's trying to think of other things.

"It might not be a bad idea for us to just sell a structure mage information about rubber and suggest some applications. You think of as many applications as you can and I'll try to figure out who'll be most interested."

Alright. Rubber, or nitrile, or latex, to start? Reminder about desirable treatment of 'intellectual property'. Possibly an approach would be to say whoever they sell to gets to be the only person to sell or use the information for some particular length of time, but she's still allowed to utilize it for her own use?

"How would you use it yourself? You're not a structure mage."

Use it as in use the information, for instance to have someone make something she needs for her.

(She apologizes, she does not know fairly much anything about how intellectual properly works here.)