"Indeed, I am not eighth circle. It can be done as a headband?"

"I can do it as a headband. ...I could probably do it more easily as something else, but I wanted it as a headband."

"That's the slot I'd be most loathe to give up, but whatever works for you, I guess. I would - certainly accept a loan of one, if you made them here."

"Well, it also does everything else a headband does, that's why it's difficult. I'm still deciding what the best use of my time is, but making sure that the crusade commanders can be mind blanked at all times is at least competitive." 

Throw disjunctions and counterspells back and forth until he runs away? The worst case is if he tries to ambush us in the demiplane in which case - we don't try to stick it out, we just leave. If Iomedae's around the three of us can definitely handle the fight, and unless we still think your future-archmage status is a secret we should be trying to win the fight in a way that deprives him of his equipment. My best guess is you'll be able to resist his fear, I think that's the same sort of not-quite-mortal that Iomedae and I are and that Abadar said you were.

I wish there was a way to test that. 

(Also, does Marit look impressed?)

"You look around thirty five," says Marit, who is much older than thirty five, and has been fighting in the Crusade his whole life, and is fifth circle. His tone is not exactly accusatory. 

"I have led a very eventful life."

Marit does not at all believe that he's thirty-five. "Well, hopefully you find our little crusade a relaxing vacation."

"Forgive me. I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't."

"Less so, I'm sure; I haven't met Nex. It's a - very impressive headband."

"It also does eidetic memory!"

Okay, now he is showing off.

"What, really? What's the first thing said in the command tent when we met you, backwards?"

"Alfirin said – hmm – 'up give I you satisfy doesn't that if and annum per interest percent thousand four around somewhere That's.' And then she introduced me, and then you all went quiet for a bit." 

He shakes his head and grins. 

"I'm sorry – I must seem terribly egotistical – and I'm usually only moderately egotistical, really, it's just that one so rarely meets ancient heroes out of legend."  

"...and is better at magic than them?"

"I'm very certain I'm worse at hitting things with swords." 

An elaborate shrug. "Disjoin Tar Baphon's boots and we'll see how many hits it takes Iomedae to kill him. I'm betting on five."

Fine, it's now been established that everyone here is very impressive. 

"I'm curious about how you ended up becoming a swordmage. I've heard of them, but I'm not sure I've ever met one."

"I don't really like talking about my life before I joined the Crusade. Not because it was terribly traumatic or anything, but because if I don't tell people, then they won't know, and if I do tell people, then they will. But when I joined the crusade I had a little bit of magic, just enough to salt my food, and I wanted to study under a legendary swordmage I'd heard was a crusader, and become someone whose blade flashed with lightning and could kill Tar-Baphon in one hit when it takes Iomedae four. - wouldn't've worked. He's to a first approximation immune to anything that permits spell resistance.

Anyhow, I tracked down and wooed this legendary swordmage - he was actually only fourth circle, but I was very overawed at the time - only to learn that if you hang your scaffold off a single point, like you've got to if you can't count on much range of motion and want to stick your spells to your sword, you can't do all the best things wizards can do. So I decided I was going to invent my own way of doing it, and obviously refuse to comment on whether, or to what degree, I ever succeeded. After the war, perhaps I'll start a swordmage order that does it my way. Iomedae wants everyone to found differently-governed orders around various irreplaceable Crusade knowledge, so that the best may thrive and inherit her kingdom."

"I don't see why it's obvious that you'd refuse to comment," he says conversationally. "The whole problem with wizards is that they never want to tell anyone how they do things. Just think, it's been – some number of centuries – and all the world has to show for it is a spell that's a circle lower here or lasts a bit longer there. It's not that it's all that's been done, it's just all I know about, because most advances die with their inventors. You should found an order, it's certainly better than not doing that, but the sorts of people who swear a dozen oaths to never reveal their master's secrets usually aren't the ones who think they can do better.

But then, swordmages aren't wizards. I always assumed you'd prepare your spells in advance to trigger when you attacked, not by actually constructing the scaffold along an independently moving object. That's very impressive." 

"It's all a balancing act, right, how much good you can do by sharing it versus how much good you can do by not getting killed because Tar-Baphon's people knew your capabilities well enough to take you down."

"One of the worst things I've ever had to do was when I started to really make progress on the arcane engine, I decided to hide it, because better access to non-divine healing disproportionately benefitted Cheliax. And – it mostly benefits young children, and if we lost, it would be better for those children to die. 

Sometimes I think about how long I would have kept that up if the war had lasted longer. I still don't know. I've spent a lot of time negotiating with other wizards for spells, and at least half the time when they don't want to share, it's because there's some enemy they're afraid of or some future threat they've constructed – which of course justifies the price. It's not that I think you're making the wrong decision in the circumstances – in fact I think you're almost certainly right – but I'm wary of the logic."  

"What else is there, though? Being bad at tradeoffs will certainly bite you, but being ignorant of them doesn't really seem to work any better."