Cam would not in fact usually choose to stand on a table, or expect it to come up, either, and yet here he is.

Damn, his canned line for scenarios that were never supposed to come up sounds so much less snappy if it's not on the floor.

These people cannot comment on how they weren't drawing on the floor. Chanai backs away with a yelp, quickly putting his gloves on.

"What are you doing here?" he asks in one of his several languages none of which belong to any Earth language family.

"You summoned me? With the gigantic diagram you were so painstakingly drawing? Not that it helped, you could achieve this result in crayon."

"...I didn't cast anything! I didn't mean to kidnap you, I can - I don't know how to send you back but I'm willing."

"I took the summons voluntarily, I was just expecting to be summoned by someone who knew anything, at all, about what they were doing." He climbs down off the table.

Chanai (and Tyela who is now backed up against a wall) is so wary of getting close to the alien.

"Well, it's not my house to welcome you to, but I expect the person whose house it is won't mind if you stay a moment and tell us what just happened. I'd offer you something to drink and maybe a snack but I don't know what your species eats."

"I don't have to eat and can supply my own snacks if I want them." Tiny watercress sandwich. Nomf. "What happened is you drew a summoning diagram and it summoned me. Haven't you ever seen a daeva before?"

"Absolutely never. Are you... from the islands...?" Chanai should know all the species of people! This is very confusing and concerning!

Tyela meanwhile relaxes slightly when the sandwich appears.

"No, I'm from Hell, demons are generally from Hell."

"Where's that?" Chanai asks.

"It's not contiguous with here."

"You're from another planet???" Tyela asks, narrowly beating Chanai who was maybe going to say the same thing if not interrupted.

"That would be contiguous! There'd be a path you could take if you flew."

"Well," says Chanai, "normally when I sketch spells I don't have aliens from non-contiguous places appear in them before I've even done any magic. Or afterward, for that matter."

"What were you trying to do if not a summoning?"

"Get my ideas clear before I wasted any materials on something that wouldn't be exactly what I wanted? I'm doing research into - uh, do I need to back up and explain how human magic works, or does 'I'm doing research into controlling the derealization effect independently' explain enough?"

"You need to back up and explain how human magic works, yeah."

"Human magic changes the connection of the soul to the body. So, it can make people numb or unconscious, or move souls from one body to another."

"Okay, interesting, I retract my complaints about you drawing a summoning circle, I think this perhaps isn't the universe I'm usually summoned to."

"What does your magic do?"

"Makes things."

This is the point at which someone else enters the room. (She's actually been listening at the door for a while.)

"Hello, welcome to Zorvey and welcome to my home."

"Thank you - is Zorvey the planet -"

"No - would you like to see a world map?"

He makes a little model of the planet they're on to look at instead, with glass oceans.