Some years later...

Tanya struggles towards consciousness. There's a sharp pain in her chest and she can't see or move - she's being jostled, carried, she was wounded - brought back by her men? she can't recall any details, can't rule out she's been captured, she has to resync her orb has to get back in the air, up up up, she can feel magic all around her -

(If she was captured they'd take her orb, except - the thought fails to complete -)

Every time she tries to spin up the orb she loses her grip on consciousness and she claws back -

"Heal," a voice says suddenly very clearly.

It looks like Terendelev's Heal managed to fix her.  He takes a moment to puzzle over it.  If it was merely that she had that much adventurer toughness he would have at least seen a little progress from his own cure spell, so it must be magical in nature.  A wound magically resistant to healing isn't that strange.  But the woman's attire and equipment are also strange.  The safe guess for the unusual is some form or another of demonic plot.  His current best guess for the latest ongoing demonic plot is a systematic false alarm to get them to waste resources and disrupt the festival.  He could already see it playing out.  The city's real defenders would expend some scrolls and potions and wear themselves down going on high alert, the demons and cultists would laugh it up at how manipulable the Desnans were, and the Desnans would offer some half assed apology if they even bothered with that much.

"Who are you?  What were you doing outside of Kenabres?  What is your equipment?"

He would normally prioritize thoroughly looking at her alignment, she has multiple pieces of equipment he doesn't recognize at all.  Even with all the insane impractical gear adventurers come through with, he thinks he should at least have a guess what more of her equipment is.  Detect Magic.  

The healing and the clear questioning are enough to stop Tanya from immediately bolting into the air; she does jump up from the litter and onto her feet. 

These people don't have uniforms or any insignia that she recognizes, they're not Germanians but could be Federation or the Council or any number of partisans. The Federation army isn't so incompetent they'd fail to recognize her as an enemy - no that's worst-case thinking, some of them probably are that incompetent. Mage healers are rare, nobody would heal a random stranger - this isn't a hospital, field or otherwise - 

"I'm Tanya," she says, it's a Russy-sounding name and unlikely to clue them in if they're not already. "Who are you and where are we?"

Detect Magic will see a pair of bracers (abjuration, weak) and a - something inside her clothes or maybe just inside her (universal, strong).

What are these things strapped to her hands. They look almost decorative but if these people put them on her they may be relevant to healing her or something? She'll refrain from tearing them off for the moment.

(Tanya has no concept of magical restraints. If you don't want a mage to cast, you just take their orb. Her orb is fine and she is busy pouring mana into her barrier and spinning up her flight spell. This will draw the attention of any mages here but when they come calling she will be ready.)

He wants to get a closer look at whatever that strong aura is, he isn’t remembering any standard item that would look like that.  What’s even more worrying is all the rest of her gear that doesn’t have an aura.  If she’s an adventurer it would be a bit odd to spend all her money on a single powerful item, so maybe she’s concealed the auras of the rest of her gear?

He realizes she is casting something.  Silent and stilled so she’s a powerful caster, or she has some exotic style or form of casting, or some combination of both.  He continues to concentrate on his detect magic to try to get a better feel for her casting.

She's probably disoriented from whatever demon attack injured her.  Terendelev can tell she is casting something just from the feel of the magic, but can't identify it.  She'll ask Hulrun afterwards what he saw with his detection.

"Peace, both of you.  You are in Kenabres, at the Worldwound.  Prelate Hulrun is concerned for the city's safety.  Why don't you take some time to collect your thoughts.  Enjoy the festival, and then the Prelate can ask you some questions later?"

That spell felt entirely unfamiliar and had no visible effect.

Tanya speeds up her reactions so she can think. (It'll be visible that something is wrong with how she moves, she never practiced doing this stealthily, but he chose to show her that he's a mage and so he knows she's one. And they let her keep her orb, which is an incredibly weird thing to do with a stranger unless you have reason to assume they're an ally!)

She was... unconscious and then roused abruptly? Or she lost her memories - no, she was on a litter, there's blood on her shirt and her chest still hurts. So she was healed magically, presumably by this man.

It's better to keep questioning these people instead of random strangers, even if they (reasonably) think they can question her in turn. Her priority is to know where she is, how she got here and why, and whether the locals will turn hostile if they realize she is Germanian. They weren't speaking Russy, her accent is terrible and would give her away - 

...what language were they speaking? She... doesn't remember speaking Germanian but she also doesn't remember speaking any other specific language - shit, her memory is bad. She really really hopes it's passing trauma but she's rapidly getting a terrible premonition.

She has never heard of Kenabres or anything called 'the worldwound', and the people here look remarkably... rustic. There's an archery competition and - Halloween costumes? (Isn't that a States tradition? Well, it must have come from somewhere.) It's a welcome surprise to see something as peaceful as a harvest festival, she hadn't expected to find one within three days' flight but it stands to reason that any remaining pockets of peace and prosperity would be located where she isn't.

"Can you tell me how I came to be here? I don't remember how I came to be wounded and I wasn't conscious on my way in." That's safe enough to say, but the risky part - "I'm afraid I don't recognize the name Kenabres, can you say how far we are from the closest major city and in which direction?" She's not quite asking 'what nation are we in' but that's only diplomatic cover, not actual cover.

Terendelev notices the signs she is speeding up.  A still silent haste, so this woman is at least 5th circle or something exotic.

"Kenabres is in Mendev... which is a kingdom in Avistan, on the border of the Worldwound.  Nerosyan is the capital of Mendev" 

She is careful to talk slowly and clearly.  It is kind of odd an adventurer could come to the Worldwound without learning of Mendev?  Maybe her memory issues are more severe, or maybe she is still disoriented.

"And you were brought in on a stretcher ...where did the people that brought you in go?"

He's not believing it.  Adventurer's regularly lie about their past, often for stupid reasons, making his job more difficult.  And this isn't even the first time he's heard "mysteriously lost memories" for bullshit adventurer backstories.  Of course, it's also a lie (or technical truth, with the right spells to interfere with memory) cultists might try.

Terendelev's question alarms him.  He gestures to some of the guards.

"Start looking for whoever brought her in.  Take them in for questioning."

He starts detecting alignment, cycling through Chaos, then Law, then Evil, then Good.  He can detect alignment without the slightest nonmagical tell he is doing so.  It'll still take a few rounds for each detection to resolve with the full set of information, so he'll stall for time and try to catch this women in a lie or incongruous detail.

"What do you remember about yourself?  What Gods do you worship, why are you at the Worldwound, what is your last memory?"

He isn't bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice.

Tanya is strongly Lawful Evil!

"I don't recognize any of those names, Mendev or Avistan or the Worldwound, and I don't know why I am here. I remember... fighting, but I do not remember being hit." She needs to go through the recordings on her orb but it can only play them back, it doesn't summarize. 

What language are they speaking. Her mind insists it is not any of the ones she knows, which is obviously absurd - she thinks the word 'hello' in every language she's aware she knows, Germanian Francois English Russy Ildonian Lebadonian Akinese... Waldstatte uses the same ones... Ispagnan? 

They are all as she remembers - her knowledge of languages seems unimpaired - and then she imagines saying 'hello' out loud and she gets a completely different phoneme! What the fuck!!!

Shit, speaking in tongues is a religious thing, isn't it. She doesn't know much about it, the nuns who brought her up didn't mention it but that just means it's not a Catholic thing and she already knows Being X isn't Catholic.

She does not worship any gods but the only nation where that would be an unproblematic answer is the Russy Federation and even they don't normally make it a priority concern. (Also, 'gods' plural?) Saying she's Christian will force her to pick a denomination and she's probably not in Catholic territory; she stays silent.

(She still has no idea what he's doing with that magic but he's definitely actively doing something!)

Did whoever bring her here just dump her in front of the local healer and leave? Even if they had pressing duties, they ought to have taken the stretcher! Also, "take them in" sounds wrong, is he implying they should be arrested - well, as a matter of military discipline he may be right, but this place really doesn't look very... military?

...she can't get out of saying anything at all about herself - well, she can, but probably not without refusing to acknowledge the local legal authorities or something. But she can try to get some more answers before she takes the plunge.

"What are the Kingdom of Mendev's relationships with the great powers of the world - the Unified States, Russy Federation, Albion Commonwealth, Francois Republic, Germanian Empire...?"

There are many small kingdoms in the world but the only one that matters to her is Ildoa and she's pretty sure she's not in Ildoa (because she can think in the Ildoan language and this is not it???) - there are some self-styled kingdoms subject to the Commonwealth but she'd have to fly past half the Federation to reach any!

Okay, this might be the result of some sort of accident with teleport or planeshift?

"I'm sorry I don't recognize any of those places."  What is a polite way to suggest maybe other continents don't know of the regional powers of... Tian Xia?  Arcadia?    Nevermind, she'll try to provide context with the least number of assumptions first.

"Mendev is in the north of Avistan.  South of Avistan is the Inner Sea, in which is the city of Absalom, which holds the Starstone and is where Aroden, Norgorber, Cayden, and Iomedae ascended."  

Distant adventurers should have at least vaguely heard of the Starstone even if they somehow don't know of the Worldwound?  This woman is speaking fluently, but she might have had a tongues up?  Actually, if she is running low on duration on Tongues, they should figure out what to prioritize and/or find someone that has a Share Languages available.

"Are you speaking with a Tongues?  Do you have a guess how much duration is left?"

Well, she's Lawful at least.  It isn't impossible for demonic cultists of odd temperaments and backgrounds to read Lawful, but there is one way to rule that out quickly.

"Are you willing to swear that you neither serve nor ally with with nor compact with demons, demonic powers, or demon lords?"

Irabeth and Terendelev often seem upset at the idea of pushing against people's Law like that, but Hulrun doesn't care if he causes a demon cultist to stop reading Lawful and in fact views it as a good thing.  He'll go back to concentrating on Detect Law so he can see if she suddenly loses her Law.

She obviously doesn't have a tongues up (or else is concealing it, which would be suspicious), but he hasn't had a chance to explain to Terendelev what he saw with his Detect Magic.

Obviously she is speaking with her tongue - is the woman really asking if she's speaking in tongues???

Is this what it feels like to be actively contaminated insane. Should she just resolve not to speak in languages she doesn't know - she really can't see how that would help and also she can't just decide to stop understanding them!

"I swear I'm not serving or allied or... compacted... with demons, demonic powers or demon lords, and never have," she says smoothly while reeling inside. This is easy and also true. Unfortunately that's the only easy part.

"I confess to some... confusion, regarding the language we are speaking. I don't seem to recognize it and - even if there's something wrong with my memory, it does not seem possible that I've forgotten learning an entire language to fluency - I apologize, I realize this sounds absurd."

"What is today's date, please?" There's no way she forgot multiple years. For one thing, she would have grown at least a little!

Tanya continues not to recognize any of the place-names or local cultural heroes referred to.

He relaxes just a touch at hearing her oath.  The rest of what she says is even more absurd though.  Probably she's "just" a patsy for some demon sneaking into the city, but he doesn't think he's heard of any memory alterations that would hold up against a heal.

"It is the 16th of Arodus 4718 Absalom Reckoning."

He'll start with pointing out the obvious contradictions.

"You can cast spells Silent and Stilled but you've never heard of Tongues or Share Language?"  His skepticism is obvious.

Actually, he's wasting his time.  "I'm going to lead the search for the 'people' that took her in." 

He looks around and then jogs over to some guards to give them instructions.

She'll take over here then.  She'll start with a detect magic of her own. 

If Tanya is paying more attention now, it is notable that this spell features loudly and clearly enunciated words, with spoken syllables, sweeping arm motions, and intricate hand gestures over several seconds that occur in synchrony with the way the magic is shaped and released.  Tanya's translation spell is also suggesting the etymology of the syllables of the words for "detect" and "magic" are related to the spoken syllables.

"What magic items are you carrying?"

It's certainly noticeable that she's doing this - traditional local ritual, or whatever it is - but words and motions can't affect magic, so Tanya mostly ignores them. ...if it's a magical detection spell it's not like any she's ever seen but she's not an expert in non-combat spells let alone foreign ones. She's never heard of spells called 'silent' or 'stilled' and if the other two are meant to be names of spell formulae the implications are -

There are no spells that (safely, reliably) affect human brains on the level of knowing things! Admittedly magical research is proceeding at the pace of the world's fastest technological revolution (so far) and who knows what the other countries are keeping under wraps, but if she doesn't know it means Imperial Intelligence doesn't know, or doesn't think it likely she'd encounter any in the field - perfect knowledge of a language would be useful for spies if nothing else - did she somehow... fly into a foreign secret magical research center during her period of memory loss... and was mysteriously injured and then healed by local language-spell researchers, who are not under military or private-company secrecy so probably academics...

That is absurd on several levels, not least of it being that anyone qualified to be a magical researcher would recognize the countries she named! Who even uses a calendar in its fifth millennium, the Jews?

"I have a computation orb." Which the woman already knows, of course. "No other items that interact with magic." 

...this talk of magical items is more evidence of the magical researchers theory; a lot of industrial equipment interacts with magic and so do the (very bulky, not man-portable) specialized military magic sensors and radars, but researchers are the only people Tanya knows who habitually carry magical devices in their pocket.

Is she lying about or overlooking the arm bracers?  Or well, she said ‘interact with magic’.  It’s a particularly exact wording.  

The computation orb is probably the strong universal aura (maybe a silent and still metamagic effect, like a metamagic rod?), but before addressing that, Terendelev will give this woman room to correct herself.

“And do you have any magical items with effects other than interacting with magic?”

Like an abjuration effect hiding the rest of your gear’s magic?

"I am... unsure what kind of items you mean." Is this because of the language - "I am using my magic and nothing on me is interfering with it in a way I can detect. And I have no items meant for magic to be used on or with them, aside from my orb."

"...since I was unconscious for some time it is possible something was planted in my pack or elsewhere on me. I do not recognize these," she points to the bracers, "and I would not normally put on something like this for decoration." In fact she's going to take them off now, on general principles. Thoroughly going through her pack will take some minutes but there's nothing in there she particularly needs to keep secret (apart from some written materials that she can refrain from opening) and she should really verify whether she has everything she remembers carrying, or possibly something else stamped with a future date from her perspective.

“I appreciate your thoroughness, under the circumstances it seems prudent.  And yes, your bracers are a magical item, some type of abjuration effect.  Give me a few rounds and I will attempt to determine what they are.”

She concentrates on studying them.

“I think it’s a protective effect, simultaneously granting a minor armor effect and effecting fortitude, reflex, and will.  It is luck-based, not resistance like a typical cloak.  It’s a nonstandard item, luck effects on items are rare.”

So it wasn’t hiding or concealing anything which is a relief, but it is a puzzle why someone would just give this woman such a unique item and why she (apparently) doesn’t remember having received them.

She looks over the rest of the gear.  Some of it seems standard, but some seems strange, and the style and make of even the standard items is unfamiliar.

“Is the rest of your gear in order?”

Rummage rummage. "It is as I remember it, to a cursory inspection at least. I do not know how to use these items, or recognize them from your description." 'Luck-based' presumably means they are probabilistic in some way.

Tanya hasn't heard of anyone using magic through items (two of them in this case!) separate from their orbs and it sounds like it would be very hard to do in combat. The main downside of standardized orbs is that you can't modify their spells; researchers probably do make one-off custom items sometimes, although these have no moving parts or other similarity to orb technology that she can see. Some industries probably do have dedicated apparatuses - not important.

...enough of this. The other man has left and this healer (researcher?) seems friendly, so there's no reason to put off her most pressing question.

Tanya creates an illusionary orb of the Earth with the continents and major nations' borders and capitals marked. It's three feet across, enough for quite a bit of detail although she doesn't remember enough geography to provide that detail for most of Africa and South America. "Could you please point out where we are?"

She looks over the globe carefully.

“This area looks vaguely like the Inner Sea?” She points to the Mediterranean Sea.

“But the overall shape of this continent is wrong for Avistan.” she point to Europe. “And I don’t think these match Garund or Casmaron either?” She points to Africa and Asia.

It would explain the differences in magic items and some of their miscommunication so far, but “- are you a human? I wasn’t aware any other planets had humans, but I suppose Elves look relatively similar and they came from Castrovel.”

On the one hand: multiple planets? Elves? ...Space travelling elves? Tanya being on another planet? No, something is definitely wrong with Tanya's mind (she suspects she knows what) and it is so much simpler to assume she is insane, or the woman in front of her is insane or lying, than that everyone in her the world is utterly wrong about fundamental physics.

On the other hand, Tanya is possibly the only one in the world with personal experience of another world beyond that. Instead of pseudoscientific babble like 'alternate dimensions' or 'timelines' would it not, in fact, be simpler to assume both worlds exist in the same universe? (But they appear to themselves to be in the same place in that universe -) In which case there would, indeed, be two worlds planets with humans on them. And as some scientist or other has remarked, two is not a natural number.

Did Tanya - do whatever she felt she had to do and then, in her contaminated state, prayed to that bastard who - sent her bodily to a different planet somehow? (With a chest wound -)

She knows too little. She will entertain this extremely provisionally and gather more information.

(From the outside, it is evident that she is shocked and then spends several seconds in subjectively-much-faster-than-that thought.)

"I am a human. I am not entirely sure what that statement means because of the language issue and because on... my planet... humans are the only intelligent species and no other species looks very similar so the question would never arise. I don't know what 'elves' are." (The word translates for some reason but she has to draw the line of remote plausibility somewhere.) "We know of other stars and planets, astronomically, but have no positive evidence for life on any of the other planets in our own system and our technology does not yet allow interplanetary let alone interstellar travel, does yours?"

This cheerful harvest costume festival certainly doesn't look like a spacefaring society but Tanya is now a tiny bit uncertain about this, which is a lot more uncertain than she'd like! 

“We know multiple other planets around our sun are inhabited.  A greater teleport is insufficient to travel to them, there are inconsistent legends of a 9th circle teleport that can.  Multiple plane shifts can get to them, but this is inconsistent, there is some complication with planar adjacency and dimensional structure that makes two plane shifts insufficient and you need to leverage multiple planes, and divine treaties limit the ability of non-Chaotic planes to deliberately enable this travel.  A Gate with the appropriate technique might be able to directly reach other planets?  Sending can only intermittently reach other planets.  Again with limits and inconsistencies related to planar structure.  A standard Wish wording should be able to transport people to anywhere in creation but that is too expensive for standard trade and communication.”

She takes a moment to think over the options she described.

“I’m not an expert on any of these topics, merely well read, a specialist in the relevant forms of magic might be able to tell you more.”

Also, Terendelev is skeptical, but in the event this woman is telling the truth it would be quite a shock to discover she is stranded and that humans exist on other planets.  She’ll hold off on trying to poke holes in this story.

“You are short for an adult human… I assumed you were fully grown based on your proficiency with magic?  You could be a halfling?  I’m not actually sure tongues wouldn’t mistakenly identify label you as human if your species was most similar to humans but shorter.”

"I am not quite fully grown, and also short for a human of my age." She is fourteen years old, but saying that tends to leave the wrong impression. This planet presumably has years of a different length anyway. "I don't - recognize most of the technical terms you used, except that some have apparent literal meanings which I am guessing it is better to ignore than to rely on. ...and my planet does not know of spells that could impart knowledge, such as of a language, but scientific magical research is less than a century old and has advanced rapidly in that time."

"Forgive me for being blunt, but if all this is true then linking another planet and its civilizations to those already communicating would be of paramount importance. You mentioned a spell too expensive for ordinary use, but even one or a few instances of transporting a single person could enable communication of knowledge of enormous value. I obviously do not know if I personally have any valuable knowledge or locally-useful skills to pay for transit," in fact she doesn't know if her entire planet does, "but trade between unequal partners is still beneficial regardless of comparative advantage." Does that still hold when the trade is very intermittent and in non-material goods only - the math does but the transaction costs could be too high - she shouldn't try to guess, she should see how the locals react.

Tanya really hopes she's not playing the part of a naive native exposing her world to colonization by an interplanetary civilization with superior technology, but - these people who healed a stranger probably aren't worse than the alternative which is the fucking commies, and they are her only ticket home. She hasn't yet thought through why she even wants a way back home where there's a murderous losing war waiting for her, she just knows she does. (Being interplanetary ambassador would be a terrific upgrade from her last posting but she is not in fact specialized in diplomacy other than the gunboat kind.)

"Your planet's magic must have advanced quickly, your 'computation orb' looks quite impressive from what I can tell."  She still hasn't figured it out but she can tell it is something very intricate and general purpose and somehow has internal moving parts relevant to it's magic?  It's not entirely unprecedent, armillary amulets have turning rings, but it is very unusual. 

"You should talk to the church of Abadar.  Finding and promoting beneficial trade opportunities is one of the primary interests of Abadar.  They would probably have both the resources to finance a Wish and a strong interest in enabling inter-world trade."  And they would have the resources to identify a fraud or madwoman long before it got that far.

That sounds wonderful except for the word 'church'! And Hulrun asked what gods she worshipped, and - she missed it at the time, but didn't the woman call Hulrun a prelate?

How do you end up with a highly religious interstellar civilization? Her world is also highly religious (perhaps not for much longer, if projections from her first world hold) but people in developed nations know to separate religion from business! It's not that she doesn't want churches to be devoted to trade, it's that she doesn't want traders to belong to churches! Tanya is a firm believed in progress and the conquest of ignorance by human rationality, so it's very distressing to see a more technologically advanced civilization be so culturally retarded!

...of course she'll talk to this church of Abadar, she knows how to deal with religious people. She was raised in a nun-run orphanage, for Christ's sake! But they did it literally for Christ's sake and not for the sake of themselves, Tanya, or society in general. They provided a valuable service to society and she is hardly about to castigate them for it, but it would have been so much better if everyone involved had done it for clear-headed rational reasons and not because they thought a sky bogeyman told them to do it. Tanya has met the sky bogeyman and he didn't care whether she had run an orphanage!

Deep breath. Bright fake smile.

"Thank you for your advice. If you will indulge me another moment, I have a request. If it wouldn't inconvenience you, could you show me or direct me to irrefutable evidence that I am on another planet? For example, if I could talk to an alien - someone of a clearly nonhuman species - that would likely resolve my remaining doubts much better than seeing novel magic however unprecedented." And better than knowledge of a language, which could be due to a spell they claim exists but also claim they didn't cast on her or could be related to her period of missing memories.

"There are plenty of nonhuman people just at this festival."

Sure enough, although most of the crowd is human, there are a few shorter people with pointed ears and colored hair, a few people with green or purple skin, and various other exotic traits.

"Although I suppose you can't rule out transmutation magic?"

Terendelev is assuming from the silent stilled haste effect (at least that is her best guess as to what it is) this woman has used that of course her civilization would have powerful transmutation magic.

"Actually, what is possible for your magic, maybe a common and affordable spell would be good enough evidence for you?  You actually already said something that made me think your divination magic must be very limited."

It would be convenient if a commonly taken for granted spell like prestidigitation would serve as firm evidence.  Speaking of which, Terendelev should be thinking of some tests and checks on this woman's claims.

Short people with colored hair? What is this, a rubber-forehead old TV show? Tanya knew short people with colored hair in her first life! She grew up (for the first time) in modern Tokyo and has proper respect for the truly alien!

"I... assumed those were costumes, or magical illusions? None of them look very different from humans... You said it was surprising that there would be humans on other planets; I find it even more surprising that there would be alien species so similar to humans and yet different! Unless they all share ancestry in the very remote past?"

As for magic, well. "For myself, I can produce light and heat, fly - a much more complex spell than simply pushing objects - detect and analyze magic, create audiovisual illusions which are obviously magical, protect myself from light, heat and kinetic impacts... Those are all general-purpose and commonly used." That is to say, her other spells are not general-purpose because their only purpose is war. 

"But there is an enormous and quickly-evolving field of industrial magical applications, much of it proprietary or outright secret. I am far from an expert in even what is published publicly, but there are likely hundreds of custom spells in use. I've read of spells being used to fix nitrogen, electroplate steel, refine various minerals, investigate underwater... The main constraint on magic use in the industry is the availability of mages," because the thrice-damned war has everyone digging down all the way to C-rank; "many things are possible but not economical because they cannot be scaled."

"The only things I'm certain haven't been invented are those I would have encountered for myself. If there were magic for sharing knowledge directly with people, even if it was limited to languages or a few other specific subjects - does this mean everyone here knows all languages, do people still need to learn things -"

Tanya is briefly rendered speechless by the prospect of magic replacing the entire institution of education.

"Your magic sounds like abjuration, evocation, illusion, and transmutation primarily.  Detecting and analyzing magic is usually divination.  Magic on this planet also includes conjuration, more varied divinations, enchantment, and necromancy.  I... don't actually know what most of the industrial magic you described is.  Would seeing a priest create water be enough to convince you the magic here is substantially different?  It is a orison for priests, so they can recast it at will.  Which actually brings me to another misunderstanding you seem to have but I'm not sure of the exact source of the confusion... higher circle casters are uncommon.  Share Languages is second circle, Tongues is third for arcane casters (fourth for divine casters).  All of the interplanetary travel magic I mentioned earlier is fifth circle or higher."

Terendelev is unsure if this woman's planet hasn't worked out caster circles yet (possible if they are all spontaneous casters... although that would somewhat imply no divine casters, which would be even stranger)?  Or if they don't have proper spells and instead rely on supernatural abilities that aren't quite spell like (which would explain the silent and still magic)?  Or maybe this woman already meant to imply that higher circle casting was uncommon when she mentioned the availability of mages?  And there is still the possibility this is a demonic plot of some kind... the only thing Terendelev can think of is as a pointless distraction but if you had a new unprecedented memory alteration spell you would think you could find a better use for it than a distraction even if you are a demon cultist.

"And I'm sorry, I think amid all the confusion I failed to introduce myself.  My name is Terendelev.  I am the protector and patron of this city."

...this is an important person! Someone rich and powerful enough they are the patron of an entire (small) city! (And interested in magical research?) Who is spending her valuable time talking to Tanya, not even telling her to make an appointment with her secretary, because she sees something in Tanya - perhaps an opportunity for investment or patronage? What incredible luck!

She gives a little bow. "It is an honor to meet you. I am Tanya von Degurechaff, a citizen of the Germanian Empire." Thank you for taking the time - no, she doesn't know the local forms of politeness; Terendelev may have given her name expecting Tanya to become more formal or more deferential, or alternatively for her to stop wasting Terendelev's time with lengthy digressions, but she'll have to clearly signal which.

"I'm afraid I don't know what those classifications mean; perhaps researchers from my planet would know. Magic can be used to condense or distill water or create it in a chemical reaction. I haven't heard of water or any matter being created directly out of magical energy, although I am not sure we've ever had a reason to try."

"We classify mages into four ranks according to their mana capacity and innate aptitude for using it, which predicts which magical implements and spells they are likely to be able to master. It is a relatively crude system, designed for tracking child mages into different educational or career paths; there are large variations of skill which emerge later in life and large returns to good education and long practice, although mana capacity is approximately fixed. And of course the orbs and their industrial equivalents keep being improved; the best mage is only as good as their tools. Better mages are exponentially rarer in the population, similarly to other heritable traits like height or intelligence."

Orisons? Priests? Do these people have some kind of religious strictures about using spells more than once or whenever you want to or something? Did their mythological god-figure create water like Jesus created fish and bread and now only priests are allowed to use that spell??? What the fuck, multispecies interstellar civilization? (Tanya is much better about keeping her confusion and revulsion off her face now that she knows she is talking to someone whose favor may be important.)

"I am pleased to meet you Tanya von Degurechaff."

A claim to a noble title slightly raises the odds this is some sort of scam, but it would be unlikely Tanya could retain a Lawful alignment running such scams (assuming Hulrun detected a Lawful alignment and that is why he asked for and was satisified by an oath).

"Does 'mana'* capacity not grow with high intensity, high stakes usage?  And you are saying it can start out higher?  Even sorcerers, with innate magic that develops in childhood still need those conditions to grow past first circle.  For spellcasters of most species, in the best case the ordinary mundane challenges of life are enough to get to second circle over several decades but not any higher.  Or are you saying you can identify people with the potential to grow more easily as early as childhood?  The rate of high circle spellcasters does drop off exponentially, but the common sense explanation is that many die using their magic in high stakes situations, as opposed to an exponential curve in underlying innate potential."

It is a common observation that adventurers don't all grow at the same rate, for a lucky few a single adventure can push them half a circle higher, for most it is slower, and some reach their limit for no sure reason.  Techniques for identifying an underlying factor to this in advance would be extremely valuable, even if high potential casters still needed to adventure to grow stronger.  Of course, most of this is academic for Terendelev, her best bet to grow stronger is to simply live longer.

*Terendelev can recognize the word as an academic term for generic pluripotent magical energy, but it isn't common terminology as typical wizardry only interacts with generic magical energy in a few ways that are actually useful.

"I think mana capacity grows in during early childhood... I'm sure someone must know this but I personally don't; I was tested at age eight and it typically doesn't grow by more than a quarter after that, unless the early growth is stunted by poor health or diet. Skill is the real differentiator; I am a very good mage but my mana capacity is merely average. And skill can be predicted somewhat, on a population level, but there will certainly be individual exceptions to predictions made in childhood."

"It is certainly true that skill best develops and best proves itself in high-stake situations, and many mages do regrettably die, but that is as far as I know a general property of human learning, not one specific to magic."

"...My apologies, I just realized that age in years of my planet means nothing to you. Hmm... Men normally stop growing at age eighteen, and women at fifteen. Puberty starts between twelve and fourteen, younger for women, later when people are malnourished. Most people live to be sixty, many to seventy or eighty but most are infirm, very few past ninety." Here is an illusion clock, her orb can't tell her the date but it works as a precision watch while she's using it so these are accurate seconds. "There are approximately thirty-one and a half million of these divisions of time in an Earth year," she says.

Terendelev takes a moment to do some mental math.  She counts off the how many time units are in a round, then works that out to a day, then a year.

“I think your years are only a few days longer than ours?  And those ages sound right for humans.”

“It’s not just magic that scales with the right kind of experience (but magic is notable for effectively scaling close to quadratically).  Toughness scales linearly, both in how much it takes to hurt someone and how much it takes to heal them.  Ability to resist magic also scales linearly, but not so steeply as to dramatically outweigh underlying aptitude or good training.”

Is this somehow not true on Tanya’s planet?  Terendelev takes a moment to try to think of fundamental basic context to provide, then remembers something very obvious.

“Actually, assuming your story is true-“ she didn’t mean to word it like that but the urgency makes her push past it.

“-the most urgent thing for you to know is that this town, Kenabres, is on the border of a vast extraplanar tear to the Abyss and is regularly under assault by demons and mortal collaborators.  Thanks to the Wardstone and my presence here they usually limit themselves to subversion and sabotage.  I had assumed the people that brought you in were simply undisciplined adventurers and that’s why they failed to make a report, but Hulrun was concerned you might have been used as a distraction for infiltrators.  …Based on what you’ve said of your magic so far, the most out of context magic demons have would be enchantments.  In addition to that, they have a wide range of innate magic, high innate durability and resistances, technically nonmagical abilities like poison, and of course general aptitude for combat.”

Tanya understands less than half of that but the part that she does understand very clearly is: alert, this is a hot war border, forget magical research prepare for action watch for infiltrators!

Tracking all magical signatures within several miles and responding in a split second is subconscious by now, there's a lot of magic and she doesn't recognize any of it and unfamiliar means dangerous, she's not hiding so she almost takes off before she stops herself -

"How can I recognize demons? How can I recognize and counter 'enchantment' spells, what effects do they have? What weapons would demons likely use -" what is a generic categorization - "short or long range, slow or fast or instantaneous delivery, kinetic, explosive, light or heat? Can they fly, how fast and how high, do they have tracking weapons - am I working off a completely wrong threat model because of the technological difference -"

She doesn't question the word 'demons', she's heard plenty worse epithets for one's enemies.

She had started to reorient around tracking Tanya as a magically gifted civilian as opposed to an adventurer, but it sounds like she has some sort of military training?  Terendelev will answer her questions seriously.  She hushes her voice as much as she can, she doesn't want to alarm festival goers, although this concern isn't enough to stop her.

"Their weaponry is like typical mortal weaponry?  Swords, spears, glaives, and scythes for melee combat, bows and crossbows for ranged.  Demon weapons tend to be magical more often than mortal weaponry when they do have weapons, but most demons rely on innate magic or natural weaponry.  Claws, teeth, and horns for basically all types of demons.  Their innate magic is pretty varied.  Of some of the more common types...  Brimoraks can use fireball once in a combat encounter and breathe fire at will.  Babau use spears, have slimy acidic skin, and can Dispel Magic at will.  Succubi can shapeshift and have a range of mind control from outright completely puppeting people with Dominate Person to more frequently creating the convincing persistent belief that they are a friend or ally with Charm Person.  Dretches can create stinking clouds.  Many demon can teleport, basically at will.  All of them are resistant to common weaponry that isn't made of cold iron.  All of them have spell resistance that can make spells fail at some odds if not cast by a strong enough caster.  Actually your abilities may be less like discrete spells but I wouldn't bet on it."

"Many demon are approximately humanoid but much further from humans than anyone you can see here.  But illusions and shapeshifting are both possible. Prelate Hulrun has the ability to detect Chaos and Evil at will, and both together are a strong indicator of a demon or demon cultist, both a lack of these isn't enough, there are spells to conceal alignment."

And there isn't a way to break this gently.

"One thing that is theoretically possible with strong enough enchantments is erasing memory, although I don't know of any particular spell that would hold up to a heal and enough attempts at dispelling it."  She'll see how Tanya takes the obvious conclusion.  Making someone delusional enough to think they are from another world would actually be easier, but Terendelev hold off on explaining that far.

"I think you don't actually need to be alert against being attacked on the streets here, like I already said, Kenabres is secure enough they limit themselves to subversion and sabotage."

He didn't actually want to be the one to bait Terendelev's attention, but that is way too good of a dramatic opportunity he overhears!

He breaks the illusion on himself, impales a festival goer on one of his claws, and hurls them bodily at the child talking to Terendelev!

He's actively scrying the city in general and Terendelev in particular, so he sees that the attack has begun.  He begins his speech while he waits for Terendelev to be in the middle of shapeshifting back into her draconic form (she always changes back into a dragon if she has a moment to spare, and against himself it will just make her an easier target).  His voice can be heard across the entire city.

"Witness me Iomedae!  Witness how my swarm devours your followers!"

Across the city, demons break illusions to attack the people around them.

It wouldn't occur to her that Deskari would come to the material plane in the first place, and indeed she begins to turn back into a dragon.

Tanya is possibly the best aerial mage in the world.

She is far from being the strongest or toughest. She uses the same orb as the rest of her men and so the exact same spells. There are veterans who've served longer than she has, who had twice her flight hours when she assembled the 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion and who have fought by her side in every engagement since. Her forty-eight subordinates are all Named aces in their own right, their mana signatures stored in all orbs used by Eurasian armies to warn of their presence on the battlefield. 

She's still the one who takes on the toughest enemies and the hardest challenges and she gets them home at the end of the day. The enemy have learned to respect the mana signatures of the 203rd, but they flee from that of the Devil of the Rhine.

A aerial mage lives and dies by their skill. The time it takes to notice a threat and react to it, the right split-second decisions made, tracking hundreds of signatures across the sky, dancing through rising AA fire and falling artillery and optical sniping spells that must be dodged before they are fired, using many spells at once with precision and without waste. 

She is not where the body was thrown, and the enemy has a hole blown through where the heart would be in a human.

(Demons have energy resistance and spell resistance and other such nonsense. Tanya was shooting to kill a mage with a barrier. It comes out about the same.)

Later she may regret her choice: fighting when she could have run, facing unfamiliar enemies with no support, putting herself and perhaps Germania or all of Earth on one side of a war she knows nothing about. Unfortunately, Tanya's incredible reflexes were not learned in situations where she or anyone else was neutral. These people are not enemies, therefore they are friends; that mage attacked, therefore he is an enemy; Tanya reacts before she can think.

Should she evacuate Terendelev - no, she's casting an unfamiliar illusion - Tanya rises on an unpredictable flight path, masked by an illusion and flanked by two others flying off in different directions - can she tell the partisans enemy reliably, shooting from above she doesn't need to worry about hitting targets behind them and she can get well over one per second but only if there's no aerial magical signatures -

He idly notes a spellcaster with a flight speed far faster than normal and a quickened illusion (he will remember her if he has time for a tertiary target), but the majority of his attention is on Terendelev.  Once he sees she is in the middle of returning to her normal form…

Time Stop

A Gate (from a carefully hoarded supply of scrolls) to the border of Kenabres, far enough from the Wardstone that it won’t interfere (just in case it’s still working that well).

An immense leap at extreme speeds so he has momentum even if the Wardstone ends his Time Stop-

-And his Time Stop has ended but he’s on top of Terendelev before she has time for a spell.  One smooth motion to pin and trip her and another to land a single but decisive blow with his scythe- 

From a mortal perspective (that has the reflexes to observe Deskari in the first place) it will have seemed he simply appeared midair near the apogee of an impossible leap.

Gigantic illusion (?) mana construct (?), impossibly strong mana signature, ballistic trajectory - it's moving Terendelev's similar (?) construct, they're not illusions, and it's hostile - the obvious reason to make huge non-illusionary magical constructs (?) is to use them to kill people, priority target -

Anything she can do with enchanted bullets on that scale will catch friendlies; she starts charging a big optical bombardment. This will make her a shining beacon to every mage and sensor on the battlefield and she'll have several seconds (times four under mental acceleration) to second-guess herself, but at least she can pay proper attention to the battlefield while zigzagging in the air.

(If only she was familiar with the local magic and her orb was built to analyze it she might have been able to find the mage casting that and attack them - where is Terendelev, is she still inside the space occupied by her construct -)

The magical signature of Terendelev's construct actually seems exactly like that of Terendelev herself!  The neck of the construct is exposed and vulnerable, and indeed the demonic construct is winding up for a decapitating blow while Terendelev's construct struggles as if it's life depended on it!

Even as he swings his scythe, Deskari retains excellent situational awareness.  In between his innate True Seeing (which is superior in range to the mortal spell) and his compound eyes he's aware of a spellcaster casting a powerful spell.  But, compared to his goal of slaying Terendelev and unseating the Wardstone, whatever spell she is casting isn't worth more than a half a moment's consideration to affirm all the many reasons this spellcaster cannot be a threat to him.  For one, this spellcaster already flew up and cast an invisibility and mirror image less than a round ago, even Quicken metamagic hits steep limits on how many spells can be cast within a round.  For another, anyone short of a very specialized archmage has no chance of penetrating Deskari's spell resistance.  There are some spells that, by virtue of thoroughly separating the creation of a mundane nonmagical phenomena from the actual offensive effect, can go through spell resistance, but they are few and far between and tend to be simple physical phenomena such as acid that he can ignore and regenerate from a with a few rounds.  But all the real threats, the sort of spells that could end him in a round if by some inconceivable chance they overcame his will or fortitude (such as Dominate Monster, Trap the Soul, or Phantasmal Killer), would be blocked by his spell resistance.

She has no real way of judging how much power to apply here so she charges up to the point where even an optical spell is more likely than not to injure bystanders, which is to say about three seconds sidereal.

When using optical spells against human targets a broad beam is best, converting energy into heat instead of punching through. Against mages, the power needed to overcome their barrier is both greater and much more varied than the power required to kill them afterwards. Unable to precisely calibrate the attack, the result is often more of a bloody explosion than a neat charred hole. 

This target is probably not a body made up of 70% water which could explode horribly if turned into steam. The pavement beneath it can probably absorb a lot of heat before it melts, and even then it will stay a nice molten puddle or sink into the ground instead of e.g. explosively fling pavement stones around because there was a water pipe under them. Tanya's calculations necessarily contain a wide margin of uncertainty.

Quintessence isn’t mortal flesh or actually composed of 70% water, but it behaves mostly like mortal flesh save for far more durability (which is still vastly insufficient to withstand the intense light) and a substantial chunk of Deskari’s chest vaporizes in an immense explosion.

Throughout the plaza, glass shatters and people without the toughness of veteran adventurers die to the concussive energy.

His first awareness that something has gone wrong is instinctually twisting his entire body to mitigate the damage he takes from an explosion.  Even amid the extreme pain and disorientation he realizes that the explosion came from his own flesh vaporizing under extreme heat, heat intense enough that his energy resistance is barely a footnote.  He must have miscalculated the odds of opposed divine intervention.  It didn’t kill him, but he’s not sure he could survive a second attack of that strength, and a third would surely kill him.  

“IOMEDAE!”

Assuming that was Iomedae and he doesn’t die… the expenditure of Iomedae’s intervention might actually be in his favor.  If he does die, even his nominal allies like Baphomet or Pazuzu will leverage his year of vulnerability to make marginal gains on his domain, and other demon lords like Socothbenoth will exploit his weakness even further.

The explosion threw off his swing and instead of a decapitated Terendelev there is a great crack in the earth.  …He can work with that to achieve at least one of his goal.  With a single twist of his scythe the crack expands into a rift which reaches towards the Wardstone to drop it into the caverns beneath the city (that wasn’t the planned location for it, but it’s good enough, it Baphomet’s minion’s job now) and closer to himself a Gate to the Abyss begins to open.  He’s painfully aware the first attack must have been prepared in under half a round and that it will take close to half a round for the Gate to open wide enough for him to crawl through and escape.

She is thrown back by the explosion and is seriously hurt, but it’s far better than dying!  Praise the Inheritor!  This is why demon lords are normally sensible enough not to enter the material plane in person!

She doesn’t have that many sixth circle slots to spare but she needs to be fully recovered quickly.  Heal

It is perhaps lucky for all involved that Tanya does not know her intervention is causing the locals to praise god.

Fire effective, target retreating. A bigger shot would take it out but would take too long to charge up and cause even more collateral damage. However, the target's barrier or its equivalent should now be down - she can't make sense of these signatures but if most of her shot hadn't been absorbed by some kind of shields, the result would have been much more impressive - so she can use enchanted rounds and land them on-target.

The advantage of enchanted rounds, besides their versatility, is that they can be fired as quickly as the gun cycles; the bullets and the orbs are both optimized to apply the standard enchantments very quickly. The standard-issue service firearm for aerial mages is a semi-automatic rifle; ace mages can enchant bullets as quickly as they can pull the trigger, that is, several times per second.

Tanya's preferred weapon is a SIG MKMS light submachine gun. It can fire fourteen rounds per second if you fully depress the trigger.

She snaps off a couple of AP rounds followed by a small explosive shot straight into the wound hole in the target, all in two-tenths of a second, to judge the effect.

His raw divine profane nature manages to deflect one of the armor piercing bullets, but another penetrates deeply, even with Deskari's sheer durability.  Its velocity remains even as Deskari's spell resistance negates its active enchantments.  The armor piercing round isn't Cold Iron or Good or innately Mythic, but it has enough kinetic energy to sting even so.  The explosive shot also connects, but it relies on magic activating after contact, and this magic is snuffed out, leaving an anemic explosion that doesn't even scratch Deskari.  Deskari would avoid flinching, but he wants to avoid letting his injured portions be damaged further, so a keen observer will be able to notice him shifting his body to protect the gaping wound in his chest and ready himself to try to dodge further projectiles.

Two tenths of a second is short enough that he's still not through the Gate yet.  He can mentally direct some swarms at where he thinks the latest attacks (extremely expensively enchanted sling bullets, slung at the rate of a hasted veteran adventurer?) came from.  A sling is an odd choice of weapon for a conventional spellcaster, perhaps she is some sling analog to a sword magus?  She better hope she can sling down swarms, haha!

It is deeply unfair that the locals can negate her magic while she can't make head nor tails of what's going on! At this rate the target will escape into the ?magical hole? and Tanya will be blamed for killing bystanders! She needs that thing to stay here and stand trial for - destroying that fortress, there must have been people inside, that is definitely a hostile and a legitimate target, but her bullets didn't do enough damage and the optical spell did but it wasn't quick enough -

Its ?head? is pretty large but its legs are very thin, can she cut through them with optical spells?

She can cut off two legs before it gets through the “hole”!  The demonic construct is somehow relatively unimpaired by the loss of legs.  (Probably some type of magical flight?)  The “hole” is still open if she want to dive and give chase?

She may not have noticed them earlier, but apparently locusts started swarming with the demon attack?  The earlier explosion killed and scattered a lot of them in the plaza itself, but locust swarms further from the blast survived and are gathering again.  Some are flying up in the air (towards Tanya’s location… a few seconds ago).  Some are going towards the legs.

He can continue to direct and sense through his swarms even through the Gate, so he will risk leaving it open another few rounds.  He will have his locusts consume his lost limbs so they can’t be used as spell foci or components against him.

The follow-up attacks are confusing, why would Iomedae bother on a merely annoying and humiliating follow-up?  She’s far too miserly and conservative with her limited power to do that… perhaps he assumed wrongly and the intervention was actually Calistria or some Chaotic God?

Actually… he’s already regenerating from the first devastating blow, which is evidence against a direct divine smiting, which would cripple his regeneration.  Perhaps a less divine intervention, overcharging the first attack, the follow-ups of which took his legs?

He can dig the bullet out of himself to study later.

Why are Deskari’s swarms converging on his legs?  …To stop her from obtaining the legs by eating them!  She’ll blast the swarms with a cone of cold.  

She still has several confusions (why the incomplete follow up on smiting Deskari, how did the demons overcome the Wardstone, …how could she have let this happen?).  But she’ll focus on the fight right in front of her for the moment.

She doesn't understand what Terendelev's construct is doing or why but presumably she knows best and Tanya shouldn't interfere. The insects aren't a concern on her current trajectory, she's climbing much faster than they are and still accelerating. It's a clear day and she can snipe everyone just fine from a mile up.

She could chase the target, it's obviously a loss to let it get away, but that's not a serious option. She doesn't understand the magical hole (?) and doesn't know what's waiting on the other side and isn't about to abandon the safety of the skies to blindly chase down scalps into melee range of an enormous magical construct. Terendelev can deal with it.

...she'll stay where she can see the hole, though, and snipe through it if she gets the chance.

What else is going on around here that she should do something about, were there more terrorist attacks in the rest of the city, is her airspace still empty, visual double-check to back up the radar and magic sensors...

In the city below, combat rages… aside from occasional bits of fire and lightening and ice and glowing weapons (almost all of which are discernible as magic to Tanya’s senses) the combat is clearly low tech: swords and spears and glaives and crossbow bolt.  The demons seem to have more magic than the humans (and human like species).  There is no one seriously approaching her altitude, demons and an occasional human fly, but at speeds comparable to birds (at most) and usually only to gain minor tactical advantages in ground engagements.

Down in the plaza she flew up from, Terendelev’s construct has grabbed both of the demonic construct’s legs, and it is yelling instructions to survivors (although Tanya can’t hear them from her altitude).  A child (or maybe short human-like species) grabs a fragment of the construct’s legs and runs off with it.  The ‘hole’ the demonic construct disappeared into disappears, although there is a more mundane rift left that reaches into caves below the city.

Some demon (one that looks quite classical to earth mythology if Tanya manages to spot: a small bipedal goat like creature) must have noticed her lower altitude decoy illusion, and manages to land a fireball on it.  The explosion of the fireball is a bit odd if you’re used to more physics-bound explosions, spreading from a point but cutting off sharply at 20 feet.

That explosive spell looks very useful! Her explosions are mostly too risky to use in a dogfight.

Pity she can't make the decoy look like she was taken out, it's intangible and can't smell of smoke and charred meat. She makes it look like its barrier blocked the fire.

As there don't seem to be any real threats, she'll fly down to hear what Terendelev's construct is saying (seriously, is she inside it or isn't she?) - not that she has to follow them, but she'd really like to know whether she can still court her as a local patron or, alternatively, should leave until the situation calms down.

She could shoot all the other ground-bound targets but she'd like to be clearer on targeting parameters because right now she can only strictly promise 'anything that definitely doesn't look human, and also it turns out I can't see through local illusions'.

Terendelev is shouting orders.  "Everyone with injuries form up for a channel.  I want to take an initial group of our strongest fighters down to where the Wardstone fell within the next minute and anyone above a Cure Critical* ready to follow soon after!  Remember if you see anyone acting strangely, Prelate Hulrun and I will have Magic Circles Against Evil up soon!  Those of you able to fight but not above a Cure Critical* I want guarding civilians here, I will decide on where to direct you soon."

Her head turns to a runner to reply to some messenger more quietly than Tanya can hear.  "Have you figured out where the Prelate is yet?"

When Tanya is close enough, under 20 yards or so from Terendelev, her head snaps up as if she suddenly became aware of Tanya.  Her eyes narrow, then widen.

"Tanya?  Is that you?  Identify yourself!"

Terendelev lost track of Tanya in those first few confusing moments as the attack began, but she thinks Tanya flew away, and she recalls Tanya mentioning that she can do illusions as well as flight.

* A slang shorthand for adventurers of enough experience that a Cure Critical Wounds isn't enough to fully heal them from near death.  (With the common understanding that Wizards tend not to be as relatively tough but have magic to make up for it.)