Oh no, the Professor is going to see her bedroom. 

Well, hopefully it will be distracted! She beckons the Mysterious Human after her as she turns to head back the way she came. 

She's never heard of any such land. There are lots of little kingdoms, supposedly - she didn't skip all her Cruel and Unusual Geography lectures - but then she hears "planet Earth".

...

All right, ammunition for the camp that the planets are other material worlds like theirs, and Myrillian the Mystic therefore wasn't lying and imps aren't falsifying all the astrological experiments again. Unless the Entity actually is from the Far Realms and planets are different there. 

What kind of name is "Ground" for a planet anyway?

This day is starting to get strange even for Silvermoon. 

She's managing to nod along sympathetically to all this talk about how you have to cut people open when they're ill - places outside the aegis of the Church must be awful, but that's a dangerous sort of thing to think about - when she learns what "cybernetics" are.

Well, that's wizardry, all right. Hundreds! What! She is never letting the Dweomercraft Faculty get their hands on this woman or she'll never make it out again. Even the elven cities don't have that much wizardry. She's not sure the Old Kingdom had that much wizardry. 

Then she hears "improve the ability to think quickly" and all caution flies out the window. 

"...Interesting!" She finally manages. "I think we have a lot to talk about! I have never heard of anything like that. 'Earth' doesn't sound familiar, and wizardry isn't as common here as on 'Earth', at least not any more. Silvermoon teaches - wizardry. All this kind of thing! Arcane powers, manipulating the world by learning secrets, stealing powers man was never meant to know. We don't have 'cybernetics', though. Just the normal ones," then she realises how stupid that is, "er, Conjuration, Abjuration, Transmutation, that sort of thing."

"-I posit that cybernetics and medicine are not wizardry. With sufficient education, tools, and time, anyone could manage it. Though I do approve of this Promethean attitude towards knowlege... Prometheus being a myth of the man who stole fire from the gods and gave it to the people of the world. Still, 'wizardry' is translating as a concept of outdated mysticism and fakery. You are implying things that seem... Impossible under my understanding of how the world works, bar a few poorly understood corners of it... And I have seen significant proof that my previous belief was wrong and look forward to more. Conjuration?"

Don't pull a dwarf's beard and don't imply a wizard is fake - possibly from the Far Realms, right. 

Polymorph.

"Not fake!" croaks a raven that swiftly turns back into an elf. 

She likes this Prometheus customer. 

"So is Wizardry! Anyone can learn it! Except - it's like poetry, or music, or something - anyone can learn it but most people aren't ever going to be any good at it. And you have to be really good to get anywhere without your brain eating itself! All right maybe not anyone can learn it but I still think your thing sounds like wizardry! What makes mysticism outdated, anyway? There's new mysticism that works better? And Conjuration is one of the magical disciplines, the Art of... well, moving things across different worlds. Not normally ones like yours. It's one of the most dangerous ones, the mechanics of the Planes are," not at all understood, but that's dangerous to say in front of the Professor, who is pretty sure it understands perfectly well thank you very much or at least that's what it telepathically communicates if you're foolish enough to ask "extremely liable of misinterpretation."

All this is delivered in one breathy fascinated torrent that seems to just make it extremely clear that this mysteriously elegant person is startlingly interested in hanging on your every word. 

"Mysticism is outdated in that it rarely produces consistent replicable results on my world- Definitely less than industrial production or scientific inquiry. I considered mysticism as a sort of social technology, that people use to rationalize the behavior of the uncaring universe or convince themselves and each other to cooperate, more than anything magical. -Brain eating sounds very alarming. I agree that interdimensional- Er, inter-planar? That subject is hideously complicated."

She can barely understand enough of Dr. Haywire's notes to make an ansible or two, and she was really lucky to have got even that much during the whole Crossover kerfuffle.

"You have the ability to move things across worlds? That's amazingly useful, I can only imagine the chance for trade if you can avoid having a war about it."

Naevys's room is one of those bizarrely-shaped spaces you get in really old buildings, original purpose long since forgotten (or maybe, considering where exactly they are, not discovered yet). It has a messy little bedchamber visible through a side door and a couple of chairs gathered around a table covered in mostly-empty bottles of wine, bits of silverware stolen from the dining hall, and various substances Dr Baika won't recognise. The rest of the room is haphazard piles of books and parchments, blackboards with strange diagrams, and a collection of different artworks - paintings, statuettes, a small working fountain - that look quite tastefully put together despite everything. 

"So you do know about Conjuration but not any of the others? But you can't actually move across planes? That makes a lot of sense, the Planes are, uh, unpredictable, I don't know if any trade happens across them! Maybe it does and I just haven't heard of it, though. Actually going to planes is," why the gods invented adventurers "dangerous. So," and here she leans towards Dr Baika with searching violet eyes, "What's your home like?" Even wizards from the Far Realms probably don't just tell you their secrets of you ask, but 'probably' isn't 'definitely' so she's fishing. "What's it like when everyone is - 'augmented'?"

"I only know of one person who seriously studied Conjuration; He's dead now, and I, ah, acquired some of his notes. I haven't made much use of them, because of how nonsensical and dangerous it seemed. If it can be approached safely, or those other branches you mentioned, I'm interested in that."

Her ansible is kind of one of her biggest secrets, no matter how interesting these two would likely find it. Better to go 'Dr. Haywire's notes made no sense and I'm not poking that'. (The raven thing made no sense except as 'powers, I guess'!! How do you even control something that's too small for your brain? 'powers, I guess'!!)

"Well- It's very different from here, we make extensive use of machinery and computers... And it's not that everyone is augmented, some people can't afford it, or prefer to avoid the drawbacks, or are too young for it. In particular you need to be... At least around eight to ten for anything at all, and the safe options expand over time 'till adulthood. Here, let me show you."

The laser emitter built into her lower right arm has a projection mode. She finds a convenient stretch of wall and points the little glass lens on her right wrist. What to show... How about a perfectly normal clip of her walking around the front area of her clinic, past the receptionist (who is almost elfy-pretty and has hair that's shifting through the rainbow), (fast forward) down her private elevator and into her private garage, into her car (slow down again) and then driving along some of the nicer-ish areas of Night City to a decent restaurant. Environmental sound comes from somewhere on her person, too.

Well that makes sense! The early history of wizardry isn't something she knows about but it probably killed most of them. "It can be done safely!" Silvermoon is the safest place in the world for wizards, nearly nine students in ten go on to lead full and healthy lives. "Show me the notes and I'll see what we can do!" Now she needs a distraction. "If we can get a stable connection to your plane that would be ideal, but it sounds like it might take a while! Would you like to stay here while we work it out? We can probably find somewhere for you in the department!"

Oh, huh, they have Illusion as well. All right then. 

That city doesn't look like anything she's seen outside of history books, and even by those standards it's pretty weird. "So... The huge towers and the moving devices, those are also 'cybernetics'?" she tries. 

"I do very much want to go home. And also acquire tools and materials to recreate some of my equipment if that's not possible in the short term. I'll need to do self-maintenance eventually if nothing else... And nope, those would be 'machinery', or for the towers probably just industrial production. Cybernetics refers to things that closely interact with a person, usually directly on or in their body, though ancillary systems count too. The term has evolved from its original meaning. Are you familiar with the term 'electronic computer'?"

Generally, no, but Naevys is a wizard of the Fourth Circle and knows some of the secrets they don't teach most Elementalists, like how that thing that happens if you rub a bit of amber on some fur is mystically symbolic of Lightning, and that this is one of the slight dangerous sorts of secret. This calls for an appropriate level of caution.

"No, I'd love to hear about it!" she says. She radiates sincerity. "I think we're familiar with completely different kinds of wizardry somehow. My kind does things like create energy or change the properties of things, or at the higher end move instantly across Creation or alter reality or something, not so much improving people." That actually sounds pretty worrying. "So how do you have enough wizards for 'industrial production' of a whole city?" The Old Kingdom had that and nobody knows how they did it, but again that's not the kind of thing you should talk about because there are seventeen different theories that each have extremely well-respected and important defenders who might turn you into a frog. "Generally here wizards are quite rare. For humans, at least."

"I think we do have completely different kinds of wizardry, yes." If you interpret wizardry as 'powers' or as 'technology', it works both ways. "As for the city, machines making machines making machines that make machines to make more machines. More or less. Most people don't really know how they work, or only know parts of it, narrow specializations. They just use the machines and work their own narrow slice of the whole complicated system. That and three hundred or so years after a few key inventions- The first big machines that did the difficult muscle and craft work, creating more wealth and incentivizing further invention and automation. Computers are more advanced, though the key factor is the computing, not the being enabled by electricity... It's all just clever yes-no logic. With enough simple mechanisms, you can make a machine add. When it can add, it can multiply. And when it can multiply, it can basically do anything... Informationally speaking, at least."

This is starting to sound like one of those things where if this person ever finds the Dweomercraft Faculty the world ends in a week. Exciting! 

"I don't suppose you know anything about those first machines? Three hundred years is a very long time for humans, we should try to be fast!" It would be sad if the visitor never lived to see it! "And - when you say anything, informationally - can 'computers' think? Do they have souls? Can they do wizardry?"

"Oh, I absolutely do. I could give you an industrial revolution if you have a decade and a fuckton of money. It's a bit early to be considering doing that though, I need more background information to see if it's a good idea. As for thinking computers... It doesn't seem impossible."

She isn't actually completely sure what an "industrial revolution" could refer to, she thought the old empires were richer just because they were better times with stronger magic, but - "What kind of information? And do you need the First Machines or can you do augmentations and things by yourself?"

"...I'm absolutely going to need a workshop and to build a lot of things if anyone wants augments, yes. As well as likely days to weeks of lead time. I'm also a doctor and can perform more mundane medicine with much less prep. If you have any urgent injuries or epidemics, I'll likely be happy to help."

"Oh, bless you!" One of the strange things about talking to beings from beyond this existence is that you don't tend to think of them as heathens, but of course they all are. Poor things - she shouldn't dwell on that! ...Converting the visitor is probably best left to someone who isn't Naevys and after all do they really want ecclesiastical attention here, no they do not. "Don't worry, these are holy lands - unless you can spread 'medicine' very fast like with the cities, that could be important in foreign parts." And now that she thinks of it, that would shift the balance of power and oh no she'd have to do politics. Human politics. 

"-I think I need context on 'holy lands'. Gods have never done anything for Night City and I have never seen any evidence they exist."

"...What, none of Them?" That might actually be good news, but still. "I mean - er, places where the Church has a presence. ...The Church is the - collective of all the faithful everywhere, the heirs of the Prophet. How do you know what gods are if you've never seen any evidence They exist? Did They die somehow??"

"There are various religions that ascribe various things to various gods. Mostly one god, the creator of all that is and was and will be." Eyeroll. "It always smelled like wishful thinking to cope with the unfairness of brutal reality to me. You don't get to have nice things unless someone makes them. God's not about to just give you presents."

"...So, er, gods are Someones making nice things - I am not any good at theology!" Normally she wouldn't admit to not knowing about something, but you have to be honest about gods. "You mean you have no clerics - people who can channel divine power - that explains why medicine is so important, right? I think you might actually like to hear about this but you did say you wanted background knowledge! So: gods definitely exist, a lot of Them are really bad news but the good gods sometimes give powers if you're very holy - I think I'm making a mess of this explanation - clerics channel divine power from the gods, they can heal injuries and wield other powers too. The gods don't directly do things often but it does happen. I think the gods would approve of your attitude, though. Even the Church was something people made. What do you need to know, here?"

"We don't have any clerics, or if they do they're quite secret. You have people who can do certain things- How was it determined these things are god-granted? Did someone say so? Or what? My priors on this are very low but I'm not unwilling to believe it, especially if many different people agree. The fact that you're not excited about medicine is even somewhat convincing!"

"You have a really interesting way of thinking, you know?" She hadn't expected it to be this kind of interesting! More the kind that has casualties! She'll take it! "I'm starting to like it! Normally heathens have very different questions, I gather, I've never actually met one! Sometimes if you pray to a god and you're the right sort of person you gain divine powers. Some powerful clerics can commune directly with the gods, a little bit. Very rarely the gods talk to people. Usually it turns out to be just a lie or a hallucination but not always!"

She's wondering if 'gods' are the same kinds of 'shards' that mediate powers, under agent theory...

"I certainly can't make a decisive judgement on this today. Certainly people believe it so my actions ought to be largely similar whether I also do or I think they are deluded." 

Shrug. 

"How many people out of a hundred can read and write? How many people out of a hundred can learn wizardry if they cared to and had admission to a school? How many actually do? How many out of a hundred farm? Estimates are fine. If your ratio of farmers to other workers is high, the path to prosperity may lie largely in improvements to farms."

"We should probably find a priest for you to talk to at some point!" But that's not important because it sounds like she's about to learn some ALIEN MAGIC. "...So, to be clear, I am an elf, we are not exactly like humans but there aren't nearly as many of us. I've never heard of an illiterate elf and a lot of elves learn some magic eventually, but we are... of a different sort from other races. Elves don't really have farms like humans do. For humans..." she has no idea, she hadn't met any until she came to Silvermoon and the humans here aren't exactly normal! But still!

 "I think most humans - sixty or seventy in a hundred? - can read and write a little Low Common, it's what merchants use, but they aren't really literate, they wouldn't be able to write a poem or read a proper book or anything like that. I have heard that one human wizard apprentice in three survives and makes First Circle, outside Silvermoon that is, and I think most humans aren't good enough to even try, so... maybe ten? I would guess it's less than one in a hundred who actually do. I think more than half are farmers? Sixty in a hundred? I do know it's a lot more in heathen lands, more like ninety, that's in Scripture. Do people tend to know this kind of thing where you come from? And how do enhancements or 'industry' help farmers?"