She wrinkles her nose.  It does feel silly, in a way.  Either if she is herself, or if she's a golem - if she was told about this happening to someone else, it would sound a little silly if she heard that someone else was in serious consternation over the question.

Better for whoever it was to be designing experiments to answer the question.

Which might involve getting her back home... back to where she remembers as being home, at least.  Where she wants to be home.

Or there's another approach that might yield some information.

"Can we look at my soul?  What could it tell you if we did?"

"...I think we could.  I'm not really sure it would tell us all that much that we don't already know?"

"I don't expect that we will get more information than whether your soul is new, but that could be informative."

"Yes.  That.

"And it'd also tell you if it is the sort of soul that involves your magic system."

"i think it would kind of have to be no matter what else you might have?  But I'll admit, you're rather an outside context problem."

"...Concert casting or ritual, what do you think," she turns to Ciara with the question of how they should do this.

"I believe concert work would be more versatile, and we can surely do it.  Don't forget that you need to ask Aeslin, though, I know you're about to just start casting - she will likely be able to follow a ritual setup better."

"- ah.  Yeah.  Right.  I really need to get around to drilling medical ethics into my head properly if this is going to keep happening.  So.  Aeslin.  We have two options, here, for how we do this.  One of them is an Arcane ritual that taps other relevant forces for contrast, which will only do what we know how to tell it to do even if that's not necessarily the best option in a situation of not knowing what we don't know.  The other is that between Ciara and myself, we have sufficient command of the forces in play to do something that can respond to the unexpected.  Which would you prefer?"

"What sort of unexpected things would be likely to happen?  Do you mean, if my soul turns out to be something unexpected -"

- which would actually be a good thing here, she reminds herself, because it would be something not created for this sub-reality -

"- you might be able to look more into it in ways you hadn't thought of in advance?  More easily than casting another ritual?"

The ritual definitely feels more comfortable to her in advance, more than maybe letting these very new friends get a look at her soul in ways she doesn't really understand.  But, she does want answers.

"And for that matter, what forces are in play here you'd be tapping into or commanding to do this?"

"More easily than creating another ritual that answers those questions, which is what we would likely have to do.  It's...

"Damn, all my metaphors are useless because they're premised upon knowledge of things nobody has.  Yet.  Except the gnomes, I guess.

"...It's the difference between giving someone a sheet of paper with instructions on it, and actively supervising someone as they carry out instructions."

There is a brief look between Ciara and Alicia, as Alicia starts to wind up to answer Aeslin's other question.

Ciara speaks, instead.

"Arcane magic is the magic you are used to, magic drawing on the primordial principle of Order.  Death magic draws, similarly, on the primordial principle of - Well.  Death.  Stillness, cessation...Hunger, as well."

Shiver.

"... and you'd be peering into my soul with death magic?"

"...I understand your trepidation.  Especially in dealing with such uncertain circumstances.  I am, nonetheless, a professional - and it takes effort to make death magic do anything.  Frankly, life magic running rampant is far more trouble."

"Which is to say that frankly you should be more worried about me fucking up.  Not that that's likely either, but seriously, death magic won't kill you if it can instead self-terminate."

"Well then," she says with a nervous sigh, "I won't rule it out.  I was risking my life far worse right before I ended up here."

"... But what sort of things would you see in my soul?  If it is the sort of soul you're used to, at least?  Would you see what sort of person I am - my memories - how I make decisions - things like that?"

"...No.  I mean, with enough effort anything is theoretically possible, but that's a very large theoretical.  No, if anything that's spirit magic that does that.  And barely."

"Your 'theoretically possible's have far too much implicit 'if you were a god'.  And not even the normal sort of gods."

"But.  I can, indeed, confirm, that I would need to be intending to look at that sort of thing to have the first chance of finding it - and even then, only in its broadest strokes."

Good.  The relief is obvious on her face.

"So what would you be seeing?

"... also, maybe anything's possible here, but it isn't where I'm from.  Even in theory.  Well, as closely as we can tell.  I already mentioned immortality - there're also other things like, well, traveling to the past and restoring something destroyed beyond memory."

"...Something like a measure of the strength of your soul, if it behaves similarly to what we're already used to.

"...I shouldn't let myself get sidetracked from determining what soul(s) you may have by dumping a bunch of theoretical time travel stuff on you.

"...I really, really shouldn't sidetrack myself with time travel.  Even though it's not as completely impossible as you might think if magic can break certain physical laws of your world, under the assumption that your physics generally replicates a physics I know more than I should about.

"I appear to have gotten sidetracked anyway."

She stares in amazement at Alicia talking about time travel, and then breaks out in a huge wide-eyed joyful grin.

" -- You can time travel?  That changes everything --

"-- well, if we can get back where I'm from, and if time travel here means time travel there too, we could get to the Days of Wonder!  And learn everything!"

"... uh, if your time-travel spells work to go back maybe six hundred years of my world?  Which currently we have no idea how that translates into years here.  But even if the spells are shorter-range, would it work to go back and watch more about what magic happened when I appeared here?  Or would that be impossible since you didn't already notice whatever monitoring might've been done?"