"Giant black and red things, sometimes walking but mostly flying. They're faster than trains, but not Witches. They... Shoot red beams of light, except it's not really light, but they still destroy things. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, almost always unique. They regenerate in less than a minute from anything short of destruction of their core. The biggest Neuroi I ever fought destroyed 27 ships in less than ten minutes, before the lead striker on the 39th wing finished it off. They're exceedingly nasty."

"Did they come from the sky, or, say, a magic portal, or do they just show up from nowhere in particular...?"

"The first time anyone saw a Neuroi, they were coming out from the giant hurricane that appeared over Ostmark with no warning. Presumably they got here somehow but now they come from the permanent climate-disrupting large weather feature."

"Where is Ostmark? We have a Greece, but not an Ostmark. Or a Liberion."

"In this world the area of Ostmark is occupied by several different countries. Some of the other borders mostly match but with different names -" She points them out. "United Kingdom, consisting of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Germany, here." She notes other differences from what Grendyne has marked.

"Interesting that the two worlds are so similar and yet so different."

"Might be that the history only diverged when the Neuroi arrived, or not too long before. European borders haven't been stable indefinitely. What year is it for you?"

"Thirteen hundred, two score and one years since the death of Jesus Christ. Does this world use the same calendar basis?"

"Okay I think I've got it. I think I'll be able to keep it if I spend a couple of hours around Alec, too. Who should I test it on?"

"...Actually, try it on me first, it probably won't work but I'm curious."

"I'm a witch. Powers that affect the mind don't work on me. It would have been worth knowing if your copies were exceptions."

"You can try me next, I don't have anything like that. Maybe when Alec's between batches you can see if it works on him or if he's still immune to his own power, but not right now."

"Yeah, I'll bet you want to know if the unknown threat goes through your shields. Elspeth, can you stand a little away from everyone? I don't have great precision with this."

Elspeth stands well away from the stack of turning people.

And then she's under the effects of Alec's power, for about half a second.

She falls over, but kips up again unharmed a moment later. "Well, that worked. Did you not sustain it because you can't or because you didn't want to?"

"Didn't want to. Seemed rude. Even with that short a use I could tell it's barely eating any mana compared to some of the other things I've copied. I think I can cover this whole room for, mm, at least two or three hours a day without flirting with mana deprivation."

"Not enough to give Alec entire batches off, but enough to spell Addy... but it might be more efficient to have you replace some of her functions and have her replace Alec more often, since a lot of what she does is short-term and incidental."

"I'd have to, you know, sleep even if I had enough mana to keep it up for days."

"Yes, but if you and Addy traded off it could have let Alec have more time free. It would also make it impossible to keep her away from you, but that might be untenable in the long term anyway."