«Huh.»

«Right now I'm at a restaurant in their Egypt-analogue with a cool lich.» She sends the selfie along. «I will probably come back for the fall semester even if I have to die for it but if someone could figure out how to summon me without that I'd appreciate it. I might want to bring friends or souveniers.»

«I'll pass that along.»

«Did anyone else get eaten by the snake?»

«Someone ended up near our Toronto entrance but we were assuming it was a panic teleport.»

«Well. I don't teleport, and I'm here, so I'm not sure it was a panic teleport.»

«If it's important maybe someone will investigate.»

«Mm. Talk to you later?»

«I hope your unexpected trip goes well. Bye!»

Coriander refocuses on her surroundings. "So, Arcadia just contacted me."

"Okay! If they Open an Adventurer's Bounty on the Snake, I might Contribute, I am Interested in the Mirror"

Coriander blinks. "I don't think Arcadia does a lot of bounties, and I'm not sure how you'd transfer funds, but if anyone mentions one I'll let you know?"

"I would Expect that now that the Universes are Aware of each Other Sooner or Later there will be Trade Established. We have Quite a bit of Trade with the Elemental Planes."

"That would be interesting. Mostly I hear about the elemental planes in the context of opening a rift near one, and you don't need to negotiate to heat things with the Fire Proxima."

"Universities here always have Bountiful Bounties for Research Purposes. Does your Magic Creatures not provide useful Fragments of Arcane Power?"

"So, magical creature parts are useful components for some fields of advanced magic, but it's a bit more complicated than that."

"Firstly, Arcadia is primarily volunteer-run. We don't charge tuition. Our faculty consists of people with a passion for teaching or at least for staying affiliated, historic sages that pledged to serve witches, and mortals who don't demand much above room and board and the occasional spell. We thus don't actually have a lot of liquid currency on hand, per se."

"Secondly, a lot of the time expensive components can be substituted with Kisses – solid mana. Historically this has been difficult to produce, but with recent developments in Kiss Mint production, it's gotten easier, if you have a team of cooperative witches with fast charging. Arcadia has Kiss mints, and even if it's easier for some individuals to draw blood from dragon than to get together a big team, the same doesn't apply to institutions."

"Though my understanding is that Alfheimr and some comparably mature institutions* do cultivate seemingly wild regions to be particularly habitable to useful creatures, and occasionally someone has a phoenix friend or such."

* Hespatia

"I would be Interested in Investigating the potential Uses for these Kisses in Golarion Magic at the Opportune Time which is Not Now. Why don't you Charge for your Services?"

"New witches don't usually start with much wealth and having people make magically binding long-term income sharing agreements just to attend school is corrosive to a free society. Which is not to say Hawthorne shouldn't exist, to be clear, merely that it should be possible to get an education without signing a faerie contract. And Arcadia lets me live in a palatial apartment, enjoy good food, take vacations all over the world and even on the moon with their portals, and I don't need to save for retirement or such."

"How does the University efficiently allocate Resources? Presumably even Kisses are Limited! And why do you Not need to Save for Retirement?"

“Suboptimally!”

“The value of mortal currency is limited, maintaining a mortal identity as a witch can be difficult, and banking options for witches are bad. So we rely on favors and charity and social pressure. Or, well. Some of us decide to keep boards of wealth in their hats or some other less secure location, some of us do bank with Alphazon or the faeries or such, and some people join Lunabella, which is at least transparent.”

“And I don’t need to save for retirement because I don’t age.”

"Seems Wise not to Age! I myself hated it and Bought many Anti-Aging Unguents while I was Alive! I don't Know Alphazon or Lunabella. Are they Friends of Yours?"

“I am certainly not friends with Alphazon. They try to infect everything they touch and replace it with their garbage. …they’re a magic-aware originally mortal-led technology company merger.”

"Lunabella is a monarchy on Earth's moon where effectively everyone is indentured. It really seems like even the founders bound themselves to the legal code. Lunabella is objectively very impressive given how old they are but I feel like in this day and age a lot of people can do better."