"Some mals do mind control but it's not super common and they basically don't work together in groups. Are there procedures for avoiding or detecting the mind control we should know about?"

"It usually makes people act a little strangely, so if you notice anything's up with one of your friends, tell security. They won't get in trouble, there's ways to free them as long as we know there's a problem. And sometimes demons will try to do subtle mind control, you know, so you aren't sure whether it was you doing it or magic making you, and they're hoping they'll get you to do something you wouldn't normally do and then not tell anyone because you're embarrassed.

So just, you know, don't be a dumbass, tell security "I decided to open a locked door to a secure area for some fresh air, I am aware that is super not allowed, I don't know if it was mind control or not", they're not going to be happy but you only get in real trouble for most things if you don't report them right away.

Demons mostly don't work together in groups unless they're mind controlling the other demons or a strong one is threatening weak ones. If they could actually just work together we'd be screwed, but luckily they suck at it."

"Makes sense. And I've gotten distracted from research. Do you have the spell for invisibility you mentioned existing? I have some for seeing through invisibility and I'd like to see if it works on yours."

"I know it but I can't do anything more at second circle or higher today, it'll have to wait for tomorrow. Sorry."

"Oh, right. How many spells at each circle do you get each day? Do more powerful wizards just get more spells or can they also cast more powerful versions of the same spells? What makes wizards more powerful?"

"If I hang as many third circle spells as I possibly can I get three, and then on top of that can do four at second, and then on top of that can do four more at first. Or I could do fifteen or so if I do them all at first, and I can't do one at fourth even if it's the only thing I try all day. Wizards get stronger over time, and the thing that is understood to help the most is using magic in real combat situations. You also need to study to master specific spells, but the world's greatest spellwork genius isn't going to be able to hang something that requires more power than they have. 

As you get stronger, your spells get more potent - harder to resist, longer-lasting - and you get more spells at each circle, and you get higher circle spells, and you can work out other tricks that you're personally interested in mastering. Ways of modifying your spells on the fly, ways of making them last longer or affect more people or be harder to resist. All first circle wizards can do pretty much the same thing, but two archmages will be wildly different."

"Our kind of sorcerer gets stronger as they get older, both in terms of being able to hold more mana and in terms of being able to cast bigger spells, and then levels off somewhere around twenty or so. After that it's mostly about learning more spells and accumulating useful items. For anything really big you need multiple people casting it together, hundreds at once for the largest workings."

"Huh! We mostly can't do that, but it's not that it can't be done, it's that it's one of those lost arts. I think the Lung Wa empire used to have a lot of it, and then when they collapsed, there was no one who had hundreds of people with the relevant training anymore."

That's a sobering thought. 

In particular, how much knowledge will be lost indefinitely with the destruction of the Scholomance library, and its rooms with their helpful Void-walls that handed out spellbooks?

"We know the fundamentals of doing it our way, but I'd be surprised if any of it transferred. . . . Do you have the thing where books about magic will get minds of their own and disappear and turn up somewhere else decades or centuries later? Or is it mainly that it was hard to learn from a book without someone to demonstrate?"

"- I don't think we have that problem! Maybe with intelligent books but most books about magic aren't intelligent. The problem is more - even if you had someone who could teach Lung Wa ritual casting, who has hundreds of wizards who can take years to learn it and then do ritual casts? No one! ...Cheliax, I guess. No one good."

"How did Cheliax end up with more wizards? Are they a very large country?--I know we're still supposed to be talking about what we can do but that sounds like an important problem."

"Their population is ten or fifteen times ours, I would guess, they're a much bigger country. And much richer, because Hell subsidizes them, they can afford to train everyone who might have the knack to be a wizard and we can't afford that."

"Hmmm. The Scholomance was able to teach people magic with books and construct-lectures and no human teachers at all. The four of us can't replicate all of that--it was one of those great workings that needed a lot of people at once--but maybe some parts of teaching your kind of magic could be automated the same way?"

" - wow. Yeah, that'd be really huge, if you could do construct-lecture magic classes so we could train every wizard. We could get 'em in from other countries, too, if we had that."

"It'd be a major research project even without counting the part where one of us needs to learn enough curriculum to know how best to present it, but it's the sort of thing our magic can do. Something to work on once we've got a good rate of potion production going." Illusions aren't directly in-affinity for her, but they're adjacent enough that she's picked up a bunch of spells for them in the course of class projects and reading what her room gave out.

"Well, I can try to teach you our kind of wizardry, if you're interested, some people who have a natural knack for magic still learn a lot from how wizards do it and it'd help with curriculum design. Do your potions stay good forever or are they the kind that gets unreliable eventually?"

"We should definitely learn your kind of wizardry. Especially Franklin, he's the best at math out of all of us. How long potions last varies, I'm afraid. Some last weeks, some last years, a few last indefinitely. If Franklin gets glassblowing equipment he can make bottles that extend the shelf life and they might work for your kind of potions too."

"Crusader's Fort probably has glassblowing equipment. This one doesn't, we don't do potionmaking or item crafting here. Most potions made here can last years, stored properly, but alchemists can mix up potions that are very powerful but not very stable at all, and ancient potions dug out of tombs or something have usually gone wrong."

"It might make sense for us to go to Crusader's Fort if it's more efficient to use their equipment than buy our own. Or would we need to get our own anyway for secrecy reasons, if the things we'd be doing with it would look like nonsense to locals?" They've never actually kept a secret more complicated than a spell incantation or a piece of temporary school intrigue before and have only basic theoretical knowledge of how it scales up.

"I think they'd probably set you up with a private lab but being that amount of secretive is totally normal and won't raise any eyebrows. Most wizards are a bit secretive. It's a lot easier to kill you if your enemies know exactly what you can do."

"Is wizards killing each other a problem within the fort, or just more generally? In the Scholomance people were secretive because if you're the only person who knows how to do something you can sell it."

"No one kills each other in a Worldwound fort. ...I mean, probably something's happened somewhere. But we're all subject to the treaty, and so it'd be a major incident and there's no way anyone would get away with it and it's not a real thing you have to worry about. But most people don't necessarily intend to spend their whole lives here, and for more conventional adventuring you don't want anyone to know your capabilities. Or if you go into the spy service, or if you quit and join up with the people who oppose Cheliax, or whatever."

"Yeah, of course. Earth hasn't had a war between wizards in a while and I don't think we have whatever adventuring is."