"That sounds different from what I'm familiar with. I would expect magical disciplines to typically have 'ranks' ranging from zero to five, or very occasionally six for the particularly notable witch. Nearly every witch has rank-zero magic in all disciplines which offer it. Topology isn't involved."

"Familiarity is the discipline of having a familiar. At rank 0, a witch can call one. I have rank 1, so I have an empathic bond with my familiar, she can help me cast spells, and if I had animal allergies before this would have gotten rid of them. Intelligence normally develops at familiarity rank 4, along with shapeshifting, for both the familiar and the witch."

"Curatives are a product of alchemy, which is the discipline of potion-crafting. I have rank 1 alchemy, so I could demonstrate if I had a cauldron and a heat source and some groceries or mana, but I can't do anything particularly impressive."

"We also have wild magics, which don't follow the rank structure. Some very popular ones are losing the need for sleep, creating intangible servants, and placing variable-temperature unfueled flames."

"Interesting. The Sixth Circle Limit Sounds Familiar. Do you Sing or Declaim your Spells?"

"We Have Alchemists, but they Work Similarly. They make Potions. Some of the Badgers are Alchemically Inclined"

"Not generally? Runes and alchemy take ritual, and adjusting my garments takes time, but I can just do things like this without any performance."

Mango vanishes, reappears, and vanishes again.

"So not Related to Song-Sorcerers then. Why is it Illegal to Show magic to Humans?"

"The inaccurate beliefs of humans on Earth stabilize the universe. It's … messy."

"That seems like a Bad System too. In fact, it seems like a Worse System. Do you Also have an Infinite Torture Organization for your Afterlives?"

"My understanding is that the soul may degrade eventually. …but, essentially, yes. If I advance more as a necromancer I can try to ensure people who die near me don't go there, but I'm … not actually planning on working in hospice or something."

"It seems Highly Suboptimal. I do not Intend to Die Myself. What was that Magical Construct you were Using? It appeared Slightly Transmuitive!

“Calling and dismissing Mango is just standard rank zero Familiarity…”

"No, I mean, with The Map. The Thing with the Lights."

She gets it out again. "Oh, my cell phone? It's a computer and a camera and a mobile telephone all in one. I have a few runes in it but they aren't strictly necessary."

"I don't know Those Words! Is it like a Book?"

"It contains text and pictures from books? I … am not quite sure of your background here."

She gestures towards the cyclopean skull. "Is this not just a fancy projector case?"

"It is Not! It is a Spell I Developed to Entertain the Badgers. It shows the View of a Place in Absalom where I Placed a Spy Skull. The Spy Skull Sees through its Eyeholes using the Principle of Obverse Contagion and Transmits it Here in using a Simplified Scrying Geodesic Variant. It is Better and Faster than the Average Scrying Spell."

"Huh. People usually do that nonmagically on Earth. Are you at all familiar with nondamaging uses of electricity?"

"Some People can make Spells Merciful so they Just Zap you without doing Damage. My Teacher in Magic could Do That."

"Well, then. You are missing out on a great deal of wonders which are possible without the use of magic, of which the cell phone is one. It is possible to turn the spinning of a wheel or the light of the sun into electricity, and store it, and turn electricity back into light or motion, if at a moderate loss. Mechanisms with electricity can be used to spin thread and weave fabric, to send signals great distances, and many things besides."

She pauses. "My cell phone is electric, but if you want a camera the easiest starting point is plausibly alchemy. I do have an electric aura and Metallurgy, I can demonstrate some simple principles given some spare metal."

"So there are Pictures inside the Device? If I could See a Picture of your World, then I could [Scry] It! [Scry] can Scry Anywhere!" (It's clear that [Scry] denoting the spell and Scry denoting the action are pronounced differently.)

"Oh, sure. One moment…"

The 'cell phone' is showing buildings of glass and metal and concrete. It's painted in bright colors but barely ornamented. There's some signs with text Eriape can't read, one of which also has a stylized rendering of a pointed wide-brimmed hat. The people in the picture are mostly women, and mostly walking around or riding bicycles or flying on broomsticks.

"I can contact people at home myself, to be clear, but if you want to have a look for your own sake go ahead."

"Looks like a Nice Place! Scrying takes an Hour, so I won't do it Now, but it's Good to have a [Plane Shift] Target. And you Say all of this is From Electricity! We have Broomsticks too, but Using Magic. When I go on an Outing with the Badgers I use a Flying Carpet- but they are Expensive- all that Fabric uses a Lot of Spellsilver."

"Oh, no, this is Arcadia where I teach, I'm sorry. The broomsticks are magical. The bicycles aren't actually electrical, even, they're just contraptions you power with your feet. I would need something for good tires but given a slab of metal and my books I could probably assemble a bicycle right now. If you'd like to see some pictures of Earth I also have those."

"I think it would be Hard for a Badger to Ride a Bicycle. I would Like to See your Earth!"