"How does your land transport people and goods over great distances? There are advantages to our system, but I don't intend to drink from a poisoned well and call it nourishment. If we combine the resources of both our homes, we can improve upon our limited potential and produce something wholly original."

He huffs, leaning back in his seat and thinking back over the conversation, "-Horsepower, manpower. Once, we had... other systems. I must have used one to arrive here. The power that fueled them has gone. I will find it again." 

Nod.

"These technologies have been lost to the sands of time, and you intend to get them back? Tell me how I can help."

Trahaearn eyes him for a moment, considering.

"There were..." he fishes for an appropriate word, but can't quite find one, eventually settling on, "People, once. They had power. I have... only so much. The people [allowed]- gave more power to people with only so much. The technologies need that power."

He looks around the room for the nearest light source - despite Edgar's mention of the researchers of New Albion, it does not sound as though he is one, and a demonstration of the more basic of his capabilities should, hopefully, make it clear what kind of power he means.

There are numerous gas lamps around the room. Edgar tracks his gaze curiously.

Trahaearn stands, moving over to one of the lamps and reaching out to cup the air around it. His thumb folds to rub the band of the ring on his middle finger, and then he pulls his hand away, fingers bending to cage the air between them - and the light, which follows his hand away from the lamp, glowing bright in the space between. 

"Power," he says, holding his hand out to Edgar. "Only so much," he reiterates, "But power." 

Edgar stands up abruptly.

"That kind of power, I don't have. We need to find you more resources. If I connect you to the right people, you could astronomically improve our rate of development- and take whatever you learned home as well...did you know that there are scientists working to give dreams physical form?"

Edgar doesn't mention what he thinks these notes can do. Maybe Trahaern will assume they're related to this, if he goes on about it enough.

"What I can offer is wealth. Money, to grease palms, until you find what you need."

Trahaearn waves a hand, releasing the light to dissipate into the air, "Resources, yes. These scientists," he nods, "More- with more resources, I can," he turns his hand to show off the ring on his finger, and then reaches up to tug on his earring - he has other enchanted artifacts as well, but those are the most obvious ones. "With resources and research, I can make more. What I need is- those people." He pauses, and then adds, "To 'breach the vault of Heaven'," he quotes. "I need to find them." 

Nod.

"Do you need food, water, sleep, and all the other ordinary things we need? If there is something that I haven't mentioned which you think is obvious for your basic functioning, mention it. I don't need you to die on me."

"I need those," he agrees, "And, not for basic functioning, but-" a map, but he doesn't have the word for it, "Where is New Albion, where is Mers."

"That, my friend, I can do."

Edgar goes to his desk and returns with an atlas, placing it on the dining room table. Trahaern can peruse it to his liking.

He peruses it. 

The maps inside... he traces a hand over the edges of the continents, marveling to see a factual map which depicts the lands across the sea, which all modern scholars where he comes from tend to debate the existence of. The lands past the barrier, any names they might have used for themselves lost with the fall of the age before this one. He pauses over the name inked into the center of the northern one. Assuming the letters correlate roughly to the sounds he expects them to in Anglian... "North America," he reads out. The pronunciation is a bit off, but he's essentially correct. 

His finger moves next to the landmass across the sea from that one, stopping on Alban- or what should be Alban, though it's not called that name on the map. He flips through the atlas to a more detailed map of the isle, and then- stares. 

"Is this... [recent, correct - it can't be-]" he mutters, frowning. He traces over the place where his own lands should be, the Duchy of Mers settled next to the larger, more prosperous Duchy of Caindys, but instead appears to be part of an Empire, stretching across the entire Isle and perhaps beyond. 

"Five years out of date. Geography has a habit of staying put until someone does something drastic. Are you having trouble finding Mers?""

Edgar approaches to peer at the atlas.

"Mers is here," he taps the map which, of course, does not say Mers. "No drastic... Mers is not new." He steps away, confused and frustrated. 

Well, isn't that interesting.

"Your power is unlike anything I've ever seen. I've never heard of Mers, but more importantly, neither has this atlas. How exactly did you come to be in my attic, friend?"

"I was... looking. In a," he makes a face, improvising, "Home of heaven. [My duchy for a godsdamned two-way translation item]," he adds under his breath. "I touched a- [I cannot explain this in this language, do you have any paper]," he moves back to the table and mimes writing upon it.

Paper is not cheap, but it's not likely that he'll find a better use for it than communicating with the extra-dimensional magical visitor. He retrieves some, gives it to Trahaearn...and begins to read his mother's notes at the dining table. Edgar will not miss this opportunity either, just because a more immediately compelling one has come along.

Trahaearn is used to treating paper as precious as well - perhaps more precious than Edgar, actually. He's careful to make good use of it, though he wastes a brief moment getting used to the pen he's handed along with it, before beginning to sketch a number of things. His form is serviceable, but there's little artistry to it- clearly a person who learned to draw in order to get ideas down on paper rather than for the sake of drawing itself. Still, what comes out on the page is accurate enough for his purposes. He sketches out a small image of the clearly ruined temple, and then of the archway, shining, with his hand - including his ring, to mark it as his - touching it. 

And then... he attempts a rudimentary drawing of the most common depictions of Lleu, the winged youth with equally winged spear in one hand and bag in the other, a line drawn between him and the temple. And then a bed, with a figure sleeping in it. At least explaining what each image means is something he should be able to manage with his limited vocabulary. He slides the page towards Edgar. 

Edgar looks up from the formulae, trying to puzzle out the process...and stares at the drawing, furrowing his brow.

"You have me at a disadvantage. Is that an angel? I rather hope those aren't real, or I have quite a bit to say about their master's negligence."

"'Angel'?" That word is translating... very uncleanly. Something like 'divine servant', which the mention of a master supports, but... 

"Angels," he repeats, this time with substantially more venom.

"Where to begin! Tell me, in your world, where the power to manipulate lights is commonplace, do your people believe in the existence of a powerful creator of the world who cannot be seen, heard, or felt, but who loves his creations in all their imperfections, yet cannot be moved to help them through their suffering?"

"-The power to manipulate lights is- not commonplace," he part-mimics, making the easy correction first, before getting to the question. "I am- [unusual]. Not powerful, yet powerful. [In comparison]." 

That said, he thinks on how to answer, "People believe [gods]-" and here he says an Anglian word startlingly similar to the Albish word, though he doesn't know it, "-are creators. I do not believe. The world is too... [old]. Not new. If [gods] are creators, then not ours." If the gods created the world it was many, many cycles ago, long before the Triad, about whom such falsehoods have been spread. 

"[That sounds contradictory]," he adds in Anglian, "Powerful, Loves, yet cannot help? Cannot be seen?" He supposes that could be said of some gods he's heard of, considering most have faded. Few claimed to be all-loving in the tales he's heard, however - the rhetoric the Triad's priesthoods use is that most are unworthy of their attention.

"It's a quite insidious lie, religion. Teach a child young enough not to know any better, and you pull the wool over his eyes for a lifetime. Those in power lie, and in doing so, keep their hold on it. When I say I intend to breach the vault of Heaven, I mean that I intend to prove that God is not the source of beauty in our world, but that it comes from us."

...Edgar now has his attention to an extent he didn't before.

"...God... gods are the source of power. No-" brief annoyance, "-heavens are the source. Gods-" he makes a grasping motion, "Can [reach] heavens. People can, only so much." He'd really love a translation for 'less' and 'more' at this point.

"I intend to do as gods do. I intend my people not need gods to breach the heavens." 

"[Of course, it seems I will need to return to my home to do this]," he frowns, "Teach your people," he holds his hand as though holding caught-light, "Power. Research- my world," he holds up one hand, "Your world," he holds up the other, and brings them together - a bridge between. If he truly believes they'll be able to reach their Heaven soon enough with only their technology, then the addition of Trahaearn's powers- "Technology and power, to breach my heavens, to-" to finish work on that translation item, and, "God is not master. [Humanity should not be beholden to gods]." 

"My technology and your power will breach the heavens. I quite like the sound of that. Tell me, can your power bring the dead back to life?"