"...diamonds, uh, aren't expensive here. I suppose they once were."

"They might not be a suitable offering, then. I'd have to try it and see."

"When you say offering..."

"It disappears when the spell is cast, if the spell works, and some gods will reject some kinds of offerings. Fharlanghn is generally pretty accepting, but it has to be worth at least close to the right value."

"...I'm not an economist but you should possibly talk to one. Uh, there's breakfast," he points at a cart outside the glass of his office, "I'll go fetch that in and while we're eating I'll write up a very quick preliminary release and then we can talk more to flesh out something longform and then I can get you a hotel room."

"All right."

Breakfast is toast and beans and grilled tomatoes, eggs, mushrooms, and a pot of tea. George pours Raafi some and then bolts down a couple bites of his in between staring at another mysterious device furiously while text appears and changes before his eyes.

The food is pretty good. He watches George work with the mysterious device curiously but quietly.

"Okay. Got the initial piece to my editor. Photographer'll be here in - oh, and my editor too - in ten minutes. So. Raafi. Anything you wanna say to a few billion people?"

"Your world is very interesting so far, and I look forward to learning more about it and hopefully introducing you to my own."

"What interests you in the learning more department?"

"I hardly know what there is to know, yet, people keep mentioning things I've never heard of. Summoning's interesting, though - we have a kind of summoning too, but it's very different and I'm not sure it'll work here - and you seem to have a lot more kinds of things than we do - I'm still not sure if that's magic or technology, actually." He gestures to George's computer.

"Technology! We don't have any persistently magical objects. What's your summoning like?"

"Much briefer, lots more options for types of creature to summon, and our summoned creatures are more directly under their summoner's control, for the common type. There are types of summoning spells that involve bargaining and longer tasks, but the beings they call expect to be better compensated than daeva seem to, and we're more limited in what we can summon that way."

"We do have to pay daeva something they'll agree to."

He nods. "The fairy who brought me down accepted a payment worth about a tenth of what I would have expected from an elemental who answered the least of those summoning spells, though, even before I take into account that goods are worth less here."

"What'd you offer it?"

"Jewelry, spices, that sort of thing. He took some fabric and seeds."

"Huh. Material objects are scarcer in Fairyland since they can't summon demons."

"That explains some of it," he nods, "but the difference was still pretty striking. The sorts of summoned beings I'm familiar with prefer to be paid in works, and it's not especially uncommon for someone to spend a month or two fulfilling the obligation they take on."

"Demons are like that, and sometimes angels."

"That makes sense. Any kinds of works in particular? I don't summon like that often, but I'm friends with a druid who guards an elemental portal, I can usually pay it off by helping her out, or getting her to bring through things they want distributed."

"I think the angel at my clinic is paid in extremely specific pornography."

"Huh. I suppose that answers my question about the translation, your angels are definitely a different sort of creature than mine - you do ever hear of half-angels, in my world, but they'd never waste a bargaining opportunity on something that selfish."

"Daeva can't have kids."