"Okay, but those are just words to me. I don't know how many clerics there are. I don't know how hard they are to find and hire, what kind of turnover we'd have due to them being 'chaotic' or for other reasons, what the mechanical limitations of this spell you have or might invent are, any of those things about wizards either."

"Ah - the sort of spell I'm talking about doesn't call for ongoing attention, you can just request someone to come cast it when there's a need. Based on similar situations I'd expect you to get a response in two or three months at most - more likely a day or two, with email. And of course I don't know the exact details of how a spell that doesn't exist yet will work, but is there anything you'd need it to do besides ensure they can't get back here?"

"Forbidding them from taking summonses - random or specific - would do but I'm going to assume you don't know whether the spell holds once the daeva's dismissed. And they would need to be summoned for you to cast on them to begin with, but that's by hypothesis temporary..."

"I expect I'll be able to get to the daeva realms, once Fharlanghn is here to help with setup. That and a willing volunteer or two solve most of our logistical problems."

"We can't hinge it on a willing volunteer or two - we have hundreds of people on retainer as summoners to distribute the risk and make it harder to figure out who drew all the circles for anyone who isn't relying on demons with forensics skill."

"-volunteers to test it, I meant. To make sure that it holds through a dismissal, not that I doubt that it will. Once we have a spell that's known to work it'll just be a couple of extra steps added to your existing procedure."

"Ah. We have a rotation of fairy staffers."

"I assume you'll also want to test the specific spell, once we have it, but I have a casting of Tongues that we can test with."

"For the specific spell we'd have to find a daeva who'd answer our summon but never wanted to be summoned again."

"Mmhmm. And if this is good enough then good, but if you need that I'll try to arrange it."

"I just don't know how to go about finding one meeting the description, thinking aloud a bit. Definitely can't settle for an untested spell."

"Well, one of the advantages of fame is an audience; I know I have at least a few daeva watching me, and maybe one of them has a friend at home who fits the description. And failing that I should be able to go and ask myself."

"Maybe. ...are daeva likely to acquire the capabilities you have?"

"I expect some will. The temperament for clerichood is pretty rare, though."

"There are billions of them."

"There are billions of you, too. And most of my magic can be defended against. Not that it won't ever be a problem, but I expect it'll be less of one than you're expecting. Our demons can't be worked with, and we're still around."

"...if a demon develops the ability to come to our world whenever they want, the only thing stopping them from destroying the entire planet will be if they don't happen to feel like it. Not even enough fairy security to launch them into space at maximum speed within a second of arrival would get them out of range in time."

"-I see."

"I'll bring it up to Fharlanghn; most gods regardless of alignment will work to avoid that kind of existential threat. I can't say what they'll do but I'm sure they'll do something. -and that's a more advanced spell, it'll take a few years at least for any of them to progress to that point. It's still urgent but not a screaming emergency."

"How long a time horizon are we looking at on spell development if that's necessary?"

"I don't expect it to be, for this; it's the kind of thing the gods handle directly. I don't know what kind of timeframe they usually move in but I'd expect a few months, and we have that."

"Is there any way to cut them off altogether? If there are lots of them it seems likely more of them are going to start insisting on things that will wind up being horribly damaging."

"-no."

"You have to understand - if the average god wants anything like this - are you saying that because it's in fact impossible or out of religious convictions? Look, I'm religious myself, I know it would be pretty hard to take if some place was like 'get lost with your good news' and you weren't used to that. But I was not exaggerating about the destroying the planet thing, and just because it happens that your gods are pretty on board with not destroying planets doesn't mean they will happen to be on board with not destroying other things our world needs if it gets them something they happen to want."

"It's impossible. Most of them are more interested in mortal flourishing for its own sake, but this isn't a change you're going to be able to avoid."

"God. People are going to die, you realize that? As soon as an article about you that has anything scarier than healing brain damage in it comes out the panic alone is going to kill some people."