"That is actually what I came here asking for initially. If there is one already in place all the better."

"It's definitely something we want to be able to do. Unfortunately Materian magic is mostly kept in check as a force for arbitrary power over everything from the elements to souls to interdimensional transit by Materia itself and mana limits, both of which we kinda are not operating with."

"That sounds fortunate, really. Mana limits will remain a check on anyone who doesn't have a pet Maia."

"We haven't broken that except via tapping Maiar yet. And people who aren't adjacent to Materia don't recharge by default, so you do have to provide a Maia to whatever residents-of-boring you teach."

"Oh, I was going to pick a Materia-adjacent boring, no one's checked but it seems likely that some of the several dozen worlds they found hopping from Shadow before they landed in Materia proper are also Materian neighbors."

"Adjacency doesn't seem to work on much of a neighbor principle like that. Except around the daeva worlds, the only proper triangle we've found is Warp-Materia-Telperion. But you could bring an earwire around and check, yes."

"Have we checked very often? It seems like there wouldn't be much reason or a particularly convenient avenue to check how many of Edda's eighty boring-coded neighbors also neighbor each other."

"It hasn't become outright intractable to check them all yet, each one's less than a second to try. When we find a new world we check all its adjacencies except Materia-and-company by trying to teleport everywhere. It'll get more time-consuming, but we also have more teleporters all the time. And the only dense shapes found so far are this one triangle and the daeva worlds - and presumably Materia and its accessory planes if we assume those are working by conventional adjacency and each count separately. Even the circle we never circuit because Materia's in it is unusual."

"In that case it might not make sense to roll out elsewhere as practice for Shadow, Shadow's going to be a completely different form of challenge."

"Well, do check if anything boring is near Materia. And 'completely' seems like an exaggeration."

"If the only source of magic is Maiar, you've got perfect containment and there isn't much a rogue troublemaker can do, and you can maintain absolute control over who learns magic at all. In an adjacent world, the whole population can learn as soon as anyone does and there is no way to cut off their access to magic short of removing them from the planet. I really do not think the rollout procedures'll end up having much overlap."

"...why are you assuming perfectly containable Maiar?"

"There are ones I've known for ten thousand years and who have never deviated in behavior from 'hang out at this one tree' or similar."

"...and there's also a loose Sauron."

"If we're rolling it out in random worlds that aren't Materia-adjacent, they'd be Edda adjacent. I doubt anything could tempt the loose Sauron to come be a mana source for humans within one hop of Edda but I will be delighted if he tries it."

"I'm not saying the loose Sauron in particular is the danger here, I'm pointing out that only some Maiar are hang-out-near-trees Maiar. The loose Sauron would not become substantially more dangerous if he found a population that you taught wizardry, anyway, because we think it's pretty likely they went to Materia or an accessory plane."

"I saw that. I think it's very unlikely that any Maiar will go visit populations not adjacent to Arda that have been taught wizardry, it is out of character for almost all of them and the ones who would consider it are mostly active within Arda and have obligations there."

"Sure. Just don't round down a small risk to a zero risk."

"It is a risk that would be planned for very differently than planning for a problem here or in Telperion or in Shadow."

"Yes. And the actual pedagogical stuff you could practice but might not consider to need practice?"

"I don't even have enough information to evaluate what I'll need to know yet."

"Fair enough."

"I will stay in touch with whoever here works on magic rollout once I have enough information to do so usefully."

Nod.

And he thanks her again and leaves and heads back to Shadow.