"It's really starting to sound like once I've read Marcy's notes I'll want to join." There might still be some problem he hasn't thought of but he's pretty sure learning the local wizardry is going to be more useful than doing artificing with Marcy and Abigail.

"Well, we'd be very happy to have you. And I think there's at least a couple people who are sorcerers who've studied wizardry and know some useful stuff about combining them."

"Excellent. Oh, speaking of combining magics, what are the logistics of us going to look at a ley line?"

"I think it amounts to 'there aren't any at the front, and this might warrant a proper Teleporter showing up to take you to see one or it might not depending what else the Teleporters are doing, and so it could happen at any moment if one of them has the spell free or it could take a month and a serious overland journey."

"Ah, alright, I didn't realize how far away it was. We don't have anything good for fast travel over long distances, unfortunately. What else . . we were talking about trying that communication spell you mentioned to get in touch with home, but I think you wanted to ask Iomedae if it was safe first? Or have a priest ask. Is that going to be harder with the secrecy or can the priest just ask 'is Marit's experiment safe'?"

"They only do Communes in Vigil. It's expensive for Iomedae to answer us so they have a whole process for it. I expect the priest who does the Communes will know what's going on, but I don't actually know many of the details. The church'll tell the inquisitor or the fort commander once they get an answer, probably. I am not sure if it'll be today. It might depend if there are other really urgent things to ask Iomedae."

"It'd be pretty weird if it wasn't expensive. I assume there's some kind of queue and you'll tell us if there's anything we need to do when it's our turn. . . I'm pretty curious what other sorts of questions get asked but I know it's none of my business."

"I have no idea myself, I've never been involved in anything that's been referred for a Commune before. We're supposed to solve our own problems most of the time, and only get Iomedae's help if it's something we can't just do ourselves or something really high stakes like accidentally introducing reproducing demons to the world."

"Yeah. I hope it turns out to be fine . . . and to not have already happened, mals basically never follow students out and there weren't any close enough to the gate at the time, but if multiple groups ended up on this planet that's multiple chances." His mouth twists and his eyes flicker around the room out of habit.

"Well, if there's a few of them somewhere it'd probably be worth the gods telling a really good strike team where and then they can go hunt them down while there's only a few. But it would be a pretty sucky problem to have; we already kind of have too many problems."

"You really do. I have every hope we can be a net decrease in problems."

"Well, you're off to a great start. We'll just have to let the command and the church figure things out at their own pace."

He nods. It's not as though anything will get worse at home if everyone spends a little longer thinking they're dead.

"Are you a good person to talk to about how the barrier works once I know more theory, or should I be looking for books?"

"Probably books, sorry. I know the wardstones were built with Heaven's help shortly after the rift opened, and placed in the first Crusade, and I know they need regular maintenance and are stronger when they're closer together, but that's about all I know."

"Okay. Does heaven's help mean something different from priests casting priest spells for them? Also how much of the theory behind them is secret, on Earth a lot of major spells are held by some small group who charge a lot of money for anyone else to learn them."

“No, Heaven helped much more directly than that, they sent hosts of angels. Wizards tend to be secretive about their abilities because it’s easier to kill people if you know what they know how to do, and the details of the wardstones are likely to be secret because if they were public their vulnerabilities would be easy to learn. Advanced spells people can mostly only learn by buying them at great cost, or by having an affiliation with a group that possesses them - like, if I stay in the military my whole life and reach seventh circle Lastwall will share secret spells with me, probably.”

Hosts of angels sounds very cool and even more intimidating. "That makes sense. I'll see how far I can get with what's publicly available about general shielding spells and if it's really promising for my being able to do something to strengthen the wardstones I'll figure out who to make a case to that it's worth reading me in on things and if it looks like a dead end I won't ask." 

“Sounds reasonable. I have no idea how secret it is, it’s possible the public books in fact have nearly everything.”

"Does this fort have a library or do people studying wizardry usually go somewhere else for books?"

"The fort has a library, though it's pretty limited. The war college has a really good library, if you do end up going to Vigil."

"And if I join the army they'll decide whether to send me to Vigil for research or have me do patrols here or work with Marcy and Abigail on alchemy or something else?" He can see the logic in them being the ones to decide that, since they have a lot more context, but it's still a much larger and more formal system even than how most adults in enclaves arrange things.

“Yep. Obviously if you have rare and unusual powers they will take into account what you think you should be working on but they choose who is deployed where, you can’t really run an army any other way.”

"Yeah, and they know a lot more what they need where than I do."

"If we're between topics, could you tell us where the restroom is?" asks Abigail.

He sure can, it should be right down the hall.

(It's a pit with a lid over it.)