"I'm analogizing to a series of proxy wars this planet experienced where two dominant empires competed to advance their interests by supplying money, information, and weapons to lesser states, and committing espionage and other covert actions, without directly warring against each other, out of concern that a direct war would destroy the world."

"There are more than two gods but that seems like a reasonable enough analogy based on what you've said, yes."

"Alright. We'll have no shortage of questions about the gods, I'm sure. Do you have any questions for us? Both sides asking questions strikes me as more likely to uncover any fundamental information gaps than just one."

"Do you have a good way to make use of my healing abilities from here? I can do the burst of healing to a thirty foot radius twice daily, and if I don't need all my other spells I can convert most of them into single-target healing as well, and I can prepare spells that will repair some kinds of lingering damage that a channel or Cure won't cover."

"Hmm. I don't believe we can safely transport enough wounded here to make full use of burst healing twice a day, with additional single-target healing, largely due to secrecy concerns that complicate transport to and from this location. I am tentatively imagining, if you wanted to contribute maximal healing to the anti-alien war effort, that we would form a permanent guard detail for you and transport you around the world to pre-arranged locations to perform healing, both on Xenonauts casualties and those of allied nations..."

"You're healing the enemy casualties as well?" he asks. That could be good or bad. Depending.

"No. We are not, generally. Xenonauts is the name of our organization, consisting of humans, while 'xenos', or 'aliens', are the colloquial names for the invaders. We have discovered during interrogations that their internal name for their polity is 'the eternal empire'."

"There are some religious strictures around what sorts of interrogations I can enable."

Nod. "We won't ask for any enablement of interrogations until we have a better understanding of each other, that's easy enough. What are the strictures?"

"Well, most importantly if you're going to torture them I can't be party to that, but if this is a priority and there's some other confusion I can consult my books."

"We don't cause deliberate pain or discomfort during the course of interrogations. However, we do not have some facilities and amenities they may find familiar, nor unlimited capacity to hold captives, and do execute some of them after interrogation... It may be extremely useful, game-changing, to have assistance to capture certain aliens. I should not be any more specific at this time on that topic, it's not a matter urgent on a scale of days."

"Understood. ...if you don't have magic how are you communicating with them?"

"Certain aliens speak various Earth languages as part of training for covert actions on Earth, including kidnapping, implanting people with mind-control devices, and killing prominent leaders or other figures. Certain aliens display abilities we have termed 'psionics'. These are... Similar to Enchantments, if my understanding of this translation is correct? With the more skilled of them being able to read and project thoughts. And we have taken pains to translate their spoken and written language from interrogations, recordings, captured material..."

"Do you know their motives for war?"

"We don't have a clear understanding of that. The lower level officers and soldiers don't either. They largely know that they have their orders, and are intent on following them without much questioning them. We have guesses, but they are guesses."

"I shouldn't assume your counterpsionics procedures are identical to what I'm familiar with for enchantments, what do I need to know about that?"

...Question in English to one of the nearby people. Answer in English.

"I'll have to discuss what to reveal on that topic with my superiors and get back to you."

"If you have any other procedures not necessarily related to psionics that might require my cooperation on short notice I should learn those too."

"Yellow flashing lights mean all soldiers are to go to ready five minutes - that is, to gear up such that they would be in aircraft and on the way in less than five minutes. Blue flashing lights mean the facility is under attack. In either case, as of right now, you'd ... probably mostly get in the way trying to help."

"Probably, so where is a good place for me to stay out of the way?"

"Back to your quarters, or barring that, anywhere that's not obstructing paths or hallways. ...Red flashing lights mean that the base is having a non-enemy related emergency such as fire or flooding."

"I have no special flood related skills but do generally prepare Create Water which has its applications in case of fire."

"Maybe if the fire-fighting pumps fail somehow. It may also be a more complicated emergency such as a... Radiant... No, not radiant. A hazardous material containment failure, let's say. Probably a good idea to default to listening to instructions, we don't intend to leave you unescorted in the base for a while."

"I don't speak the language. This spell lets you speak mine for 24 hours; I can also cast one that lets me understand and read but not speak or write any language."

"-Okay, we'll want to know the functional limits on any 'spell' you deploy, when feasible. One thing we wanted to address is whether you expect any side-effects for the people affected by your healing magic. We haven't observed any acute effects, but if there is an accumulated risk of damage or disease with exposure to the healing, for example, we would like to know."