"I don't mean selling, just—giving out. If you have arbitrary material goods you don't really need money."

"… We don't have much of an economy for material goods in Heaven, where the other Changers are, but we still trade in things like technology because that's harder to produce for us? So, no, you don't really need money if you have arbitrary material goods. But presumably just giving out things to people, from a summoner, for free to other mortals, would crash the market, so I expect there are laws against doing too much of that too."

"When I said 'you' I meant 'all you people from your set of worlds' not Changers in particular."

"Right, and in the non-mortal worlds we don't, as far as I know, have a conventional economy – Fairyland has some of one, they can't actually produce anything by themselves, Limbo presumably would but has issues in that there really isn't much stuff there at all, Heaven is mainly stuff that we have difficulty producing, Hell probably has informational trading, like, lists of book authors, and I assume there are laws that protect the mortal world's economy from being crashed." Pause. "There are definitely laws against selling material created by daeva, I assume freely giving stuff away is also prohibited over a certain amount, you still need people to invent things and do the manual labor and stuff so that's not totally obviated but I guess you could do that by trading skilled work or something? They at least still seem to have an economy, but I haven't studied up on the laws that might protect it."

"That sounds... kinda silly, to be honest, but I'm no economist."

He shrugs. "Me either. But somehow the economy still exists, even though daeva exist to help with the whole issue of material scarcity, and there really aren't many summoners and we get treated like tools instead of people and for the most part we're not used as much as, like, we probably should be?"

"Such a waste," Lulu mutters, shaking her head.

"I take summons when I can, and they're usually taken pretty quickly, but there honestly aren't as many as I'd sort of hope there to be." Shrug. "I doubt Makers get summoned more, same for Movers."

"We'd have killed Sin hundreds of years ago if we had access to daeva."

"– I mean, probably, but it depends on how the other daeva would interact with magic and what sorts of things are actually required to kill it. At least you'd, you know, be able to go become a daeva when you died, probably, so you'd probably have already spoken to High Summoners if any of them summoned daeva, and– actually, yeah, I'm still not clear on how that could affect your Plan, you having summoned me, because it might mean that you don't become unsent even if you're trying to."

"Yes that would be terrible. I would really rather not become a daeva, I have things to do."

"Unfortunately I don't know how you'd stop yourself, but summoning wasn't working last I checked – should probably check that again – so maybe transport between here and there is somehow broken?" Pause. Frown. "Which might mean I can't get back, and also might mean we're kind of really far away from the rest of the mortal world."

"Your mortal world seems on the way towards being fixed and to not suffer from giant monsters."

"And we don't have the sphere magic stuff, we don't have unsent, we don't have fiends of any variety, we don't have the Farplane…"

"Right yes but my point is your world is in less trouble than mine so between both of us being here and both of us being there I know what my pick is."

"– Yes, but my point is that transport might not work to get us back there since it doesn't currently work to get people here. So you might die and turn into some daeva and be unable to appear in a daeva world, or you might stay around as an unsent, or you might disappear as soon as the connection is restored if it works like that, and I have no idea what will happen to me after you die." Pause. "Again, this is unprecedented."

"If transport doesn't work to get us back and we just stay here then that's great by me is what I meant. But those possibilities do kinda make figuring out why summoning—of your kind—doesn't work here except that one time a priority."

"Yep. I'd expect to somehow get back despite transport or, like, stay here without a summoner – I'm pretty immortal so I doubt I'd just disappear or something – but I don't know." Shrug. "You could try dismissing me at some point but if that works and you can't get me back then that's not wonderful."

"Yeah no I'm not dismissing you until and unless we figure out how to summon you." Pause. "Or you want to be dismissed."

"Nah, I'm fine," he says. "Besides, there's no guarantee I'd even get home at this stage so it seems wiser, y'know, not to."

"Mmhm. ...what do you do all day, back home, other than answering summons?"

"Talk to people, play games or sports or watch movies and stuff? … I was eating an apple this time?"

"...I might die of boredom if I become a daeva."

"You could build a house, you could probably find some pretty architecture to watch, you could use the internet… I mean, I spent the first like year of my life learning to speak and then had a fun Changer childhood education and then went through medical school, so it's not all boredom? Besides, if you could get summoned back here you'd be able to do, like, all the same things as before." Pause. "If you become a Mover you might die of boredom, sure."

"Well, sure, but that's, like, an extended vacation."