They do! Ones near the first one they take, so they can move quickly if they need to.

Then once it's night, they can get started on the plan. Mhalir has in the meantime acquired a local bird called an owl, which has pretty good vision even in dim light, and can perch on a nearby rooftop and watch the first stage of the operation, with the local, lower-level wizard. 

The wizard doesn't react to the sedative gas; once he wakes up it's over. "There's a low-level spell called Alarm they use to be warned of anyone approaching or entering the house; as long as we don't do that they shouldn't notice us unless they have far more powerful spells, this one doesn't know them but he thinks they'd be fourth, fifth circle," the Yeerk reports. "They are not automatically protected from a sedative gas, though elves might be, this guy thinks they're immune to sleep magic and maybe it's the same thing. He also thinks sufficiently powerful wizards could just teleport out from having a Yeerk in their heads, but that'd be fifth circle, maybe fourth for a specialist. They have to prepare their spells every day and at night they probably have very few of them, because they've used them and don't get new ones until the morning. I can check whether we'll be able to use their spells, if we want to check that now -"

<Yes, it would be good to check that now. And if the stronger defences are fourth or fifth level, I think we should prepare to take the young third-level wizard.> 

His people move on that. This wizard tries to Detect Magic, with a gesture and an incomprehensible word. "That worked," he says. "It might be more complicated for spells where commands are given telepathically, I think they might think of the host as the person who can give those commands - we can test that later - everyone second-circle or higher is going to have Detect Thoughts, though they're mostly supposed to use it for the King some of them use it casually - I think it's risky being here -"

<It is definitely risky to stay and we should return to the ship once we have the other wizard - or try and fail to capture her, I suppose, if it goes unexpectedly badly I think we should just abort.> 

He nods and stuffs his host's magic-related possessions into a bag and heads out to join them. "It'd be better to get a smarter one if you can, this one barely picked up the easiest class of spells and isn't expected to get much farther. Smart ones can do interplanetary point-to-point travel, they can control people from a distance, they can shapechange -- not as flexibly as morph --"

<That makes sense. I think the soldier we are trying for next is probably quite smart. What wizard level is Detect Thoughts?>

"Second."

<Then maybe we will have access to it soon. Are there factors other than intelligence that determine progress as a wizard - diligence of practice, I would assume...> 

"And to get past third you need combat experience. They think it's something about a physiological response to using magic in real high-stakes situations. It increases your peak channeling capacity, and then you can prepare more powerful spells. And then wizards benefit from being around other wizards, sharing spell notes, things like that, a wizard who knows a lot more spells is a lot more powerful - there are other kinds of magic-user who can do more damage, the main thing wizards have going for them is versatility."

<That makes sense. Sorcerers are born with magic powers, right - what other kinds are there?> 

"There's probably dozens of kinds. Alchemists do magic chemistry, bards sing, witches make deals with extraplanar patrons and shamans make deals with minor local spirits, summoners have a specific extraplanar linked spirit, there are various variants of wizards using different approaches to arcane magic..."

<This world is so bizarre and complicated.>

Still in morph, Mhalir flies over to join the shuttle near the other wizard's house, well, mother's house. They should if possible arrange to gas the house before any of their people approach, so the alarm-magic won't go off until it's too late. 

They can gas the house without getting too close, if they don't mind using more gas than necessary. 

It'll be fastest to drag her out on the spot; the other one took about fifteen minutes to wake up, and it's better not to stay this long.

Using more gas than necessary seems fine, and he agrees on hauling her out right away. 

It goes smoothly. Once they're confident she has to be under they hurry in, and drag her out thirty seconds after that. No one else wakes. The shuttle takes off for orbit. "The farther we are the less likely they'll successfully mount a rescue," the Yeerk with a wizard host says. "My host doesn't expect them to try anyway but if they did they'd scry the targets and Teleport off the scried image. There are ways to block a scry but he doesn't know them. The Teleport with more than eight hundred miles range is very rare and they wouldn't bother."

<We can return to the ship and regroup there. It may at this point make sense to return to Yeerk space and report our finding here, now that we have more extensive information and - proof of their special capabilities.>

Is the young woman going to be awake soon? Mhalir is wondering if this is one he wants to see for himself.

(Also he wishes he could afford to let her wake up and have a conversation first, he doesn't like all of this taking involuntary hosts, but letting her wake up un-Yeerked seems very very ill-advised.) 

They're monitoring her. Five more minutes, probably. They could... wake her with a Yeerk but not have the Yeerk seize control unless she tries to light everything on fire?

...Sure, that at least seems a bit less hostile than not doing that. 

He's very curious what she's going to think. Wizards here, especially wizards who've fought in far-off wars, probably have a lot more exposure to bizarre happenings than Earth humans. Maybe she'll take the appearance of a strange furry blue alien in stride.

In that case, one of the Yeerks brought for this purpose can Yeerk her, and Mhalir, as the one in command on their expedition, will try to talk to her, unless she immediately tries to set everything on fire. Upside of trying to persuade the more powerful wizard to cooperate: securing a wizard while their Yeerk is in the pool might be an even harder problem than Alloran. He supposes they can use up all of her spells right before... 

Worry about that later. He paces, waits for her to wake up. 

- she wakes up with a headache somewhere unfamiliar and there's a blue - centaur? horse? - probably it's very offensive to get wrong but she has no idea. Where is she. 

<My name is Mhalir> the blue centaur-horse-thing says to her. Telepathically. <You are on my spaceship. What is your name?>

- spaceship? Is that like a flying island? Or like the things in Numeria - how'd she get to Numeria - 

- he's probably not going to kill her outright on the first instance of being rude, this would be a lot of effort to go to for that. And probably a fey wouldn't have given his name. They could trivially have truth magic up, though -  "Sevar," she says, just in case, she thinks family names count for less. "Did you kidnap me."

<Yes.> He briefly considers apologizing but she's unlikely to appreciate an apology and it's not like he can claim he regrets it, exactly. <We are from another world - not another planet around your sun, a world very far away. We were testing experimental transport between stars, and instead of reaching our intended destination, we ended up here and have been studying your world's magic.> 

How plausible is that.

There are other worlds. There are worlds around other stars, though they know of only a few of them. Some of them could want to study Golarion's magic without attracting attention. On the other hand it's very - neat? She can't verify anything about it. She is specifically a person who couldn't verify any of it, a cleric would have truth magic - of course, if you're interested in alien magic you'd be interested in their frameworks for arcane magic, probably. The gods mostly don't operate on other worlds, as far as she knows. 

She is scared. She is not going to act scared because sometimes people take their cues about whether they're dealing with an equal or with a slave from whether you are scared. "I see. Do you have my spellbook."