"Yeah; some regions manage higher crime rates but that's more 'frequent theft' than 'frequent violence.'"

"It's not traditionally a crime-related thing - well, sometimes it is, I've done jobs catching pirates, but mostly the fights are with monsters."

"Monsters?"

"Dangerous animals or extremely antisocial people who are shaped more like animals than like you or me? It's not an especially principled class of entity but it comes up a lot in my line of work."

"There's. Uh. Bears? Those usually leave humans alone, though."

"Bears are a very minor grade of monster if one counts them as one at all."

"Our world's very different there, then."

"It seems like it, yeah. It's possible I'll never make it home at all."

"Alchemy might be able to get you home, too, if moving between worlds is possible in the first place - it should just be transferring energy and matter and information..."

"And magic. I don't want to start over at wizardry or see what happens when the magic I was born with is gone. You have no experimental subjects available, either."

"That's the big problem, yeah, and - there's problems, with just using a philosopher's stone to compensate for all areas we're lacking."

"It's possible my insurance company or one of my friends will find me eventually."

"That'd be really nice, yeah."

"And then ongoing contact is just a matter of funding the spells, probably."

"And alchemists are really good at producing and refining valuable materials."

"I'm not sure alchemical diamonds and so on will work for the most high demand applications, but I guess it could at least cut competition with the jewelry market."

"Depends on what's important about diamonds, I guess?"

"Items conjured with our magic can't be used as spell components. I don't know if alchemy is different enough."

"It'll be something to test, if nothing else - do any of your current spells use spell components?"

"Expensive ones," she clarifies. "The cheap stuff I know how to skip. Rite of the Centered Mind wants incense. I'm out of it so I don't have a sample to copy, though."

"Expensive might mean something different, here. I can make diamonds out of fireplace ash."

"Diamonds are expensive there but I don't currently know any spells that call for them, just the incense one."

"Does any incense work, or just a specific kind?"

"It has to be relaxing? I usually buy it in component shops so they have the right kind without me having to know the details."

"Is it easy to experiment with using different kinds?"