"Yeah. Jewelry."

"That's interesting. I do too. How does it work in your world? I draw runes on paper and then say an incantation."

"Oh, I'm not a wizard, I just... make jewelry. Though I've worked with wizards now and again, and clerics."

"What's the difference between a wizard and a cleric and someone who makes magic jewelry? Or did you mean you make the jewelry and a wizard or a cleric does the magic part?"

"I've done it that way but now I can make the jewelry magic on my own as long as it doesn't require anything really spectacular. But I can't cast spells, I can just make jewelry."

"Huh. I can do it both ways, but with items you can make it do the same thing over and over instead of needing a new casting every time, so I pretty much only do items. It sounds like your world works on different rules."

"I think selling spells is much more lucrative than making items but more of a hassle to have to do your own sales and wizards don't typically like to do sales. What items do you do business in?"

"Things that make you invisible, lights, I have a healing item but selling healing has a lot of laws around it; my biggest seller is things that make members of other species look human so they can live in human society."

"- why is healing bogged down in legislation -"

"Because I'm a kid with no medical training and I can't prove my methods are safe because I haven't tested them and I can't test them because I can't prove they're safe."

And because if she wasn't a dragon they might well not be safe, to be fair, but she can't be fair because even if whoever abducted them probably knows about her business they might not know her species, and Ismat almost certainly doesn't.

"Medical training - are they not safe, compared to not being healed -"

"I've never had anyone end up worse off. But, uh, not a lot of people know magic healing, so I've only had a handful of volunteers who were willing to try something new."

"I guess it'd be hard to come by if you don't have gods. If the damn door would open I could get you some missionaries, fix that right up. - well, maybe after my brother in law checks that their souls wouldn't dissolve if something happened to them, that'd be a bit much to ask."

"What are your gods like, other than good at healing magic?"

"Depends on the god. In Osirion we mostly favor Abadar, god of trade, but now and then I'll say a word for Shelyn or Nethys, gods of beauty and magic respectively."

"Are those the only ones? What do they do, how do they interact with people?"

"No, no, there's dozens, but not all of 'em have active churches in the area and not all of those are relevant to me. Uh, they pick clerics, who can do magic, especially healing, and who carry out their will in the material plane. My husband's a cleric of Abadar, and his brother's Abadar's mortal aspect, pharaoh of Osirion; the church handles banking and insurance and regulatory compliance and pilgrimages to Axis and social services and such, so Merenre, my husband, does that, and my brother-in-law rules the country."

"That's really cool. Especially how they all do healing in addition to their specialties. I admit I'm kind of hesitant to invite unfamiliar powerful beings into my universe, but if we get out of here and if my universe isn't a death trap that keeps people out of their afterlife I'll at least think about it and try to learn more."

Ismat goes and tries the door again but it still won't open. "Probably sooner or later I'll be noticed missing and Merenre'll have me fetched home."

"That's good. --Do you think he'll be able to get me home too? Nobody I know knows about other worlds; they won't know where to look for me." Bella has as good a chance as anyone of figuring something out, but she'd have to develop new spells even just to find out that Margaret isn't dead.

"He's got Plane Shift but you need a doodad for it and I don't know that there are any attuned to your plane. Maybe Abadar can work something out. Sending'll get a message to someone, though, doesn't need a doodad."

"That's good. And if it doesn't look like I can get the door back open to my world, I can try teleporting, I'm just worried it will go horribly wrong if I try to teleport from outside the universe."

"Our sort of teleport only works within planes, yeah."

"Yeah. So, what sort of things do you make magic items for?"

"Little hairpins to warn you if you're being lawless or evil or something, necklace that makes you immune to diseases, rings that make you only need two hours of sleep and no food or water..."