"- where we're from demons can pretty much kill most people, if they get loose of the wards. Not well-equipped and prepared veteran soldiers, and not powerful spellcasters, but - the overwhelming majority of normal people, demons can and will just eat."

"If they get outside the--wait, do all the demons come from the Worldwound? They're not just, like, around and breeding in the background and getting into everywhere?"

" - no. Nearly all the demons anywhere else in the world are ones that escaped the cordon here. I think most demons can't breed at all. ...your world just has an ongoing demon infestation everywhere?"

"Yes. Ours are probably weaker; they generally can't take out a well-prepared adult wizard unless the wizard is really old or sick or unlucky. And they can eat normal people but they usually don't; it's mana they want. Also it's hard to do magic in front of anyone who doesn't believe in it, so wizards generally hide and mundanes can sometimes just kill a mal because they think it's a rat or something. So, wizard kids are the tastiest targets."

"It's...hard to do magic in front of anyone who doesn't believe in it? I don't know that to be false here, to be clear, but ...everyone believes in magic... because it's - extremely obvious that magic works - it'd be like not believing in trees."

"I can see how that's an equilibrium a planet could end up in, yeah. Especially if there's few enough demons most places that believing in them doesn't put people in a bunch of extra danger. There'd be no reason for secrecy."

"If we could figure out how to cut off the Worldwound the way El cut off the Scholomance, that would just--solve the demon problem? Not even just for a generation, but until something opened it again? I'm not saying we can, there have to be loads of people trying and none of them have gotten it, just--it's like the thing we did with the Scholomance is already almost done except for the cutting-it-off step."

That makes him smile broadly. " - yes. If you could - figure out how to cut off the Worldwound - then the world would just - not have a demon problem. You did something similar in your own world?"

"We were at a school in the Void--kind of like one of your demiplanes, it sounds like--and there were two really powerful people in our year who were able to clean out the area in front of the exit that's usually a horde of mals, and someone had the idea: what if we lure a shitton of mals into the school, then run out and cut the school off the Earth and strand the mals in the Void? Then there'd be no more school for the kids to hide in but they wouldn't need one because there'd be so few mals left, and everyone would have years to get ahead of the problem before it got bad again. And as far as we know it worked, except the exit portal dropped us here instead of where it was supposed to."

"- you lured the demons off the world into a demiplane and then stranded them all there?

- right, okay. I'm not a theologian but I think we owe you guys dinner for that one, even if we can't learn your spells. And if you have any ideas on closing the Wound - it'd be at least up there for the most important thing anyone could possibly do with their lives."

"It wasn't just us, there were hundreds of people working on it. I won't turn down dinner and more magic discussion, though; it sounds like we're different enough that we might be able to do things you can't same as you can do some things we can't." And if they can do something that matters here it would make there be some kind of point to any of it instead of just being stuck unable to go home forever.

"They're not going to be excited to let you into the fort - nothing personal, just, the cleverer kinds of demons have a lot of goes at infiltrating the forts - but I bet they'll pass us food out. And I do have a bunch of questions, and if you're not lying you're allies and as much as we can afford to we'll help you get oriented." He gets down off his magic horse. "Marit. Nice to meet you."

"Marcy, and these are Kevin, Abigail, and Franklin. It's nice to meet you too and we'd be happy to demonstrate doing things humans can do and demons can't if there are any, or cooperate with truth magic if you have it. I have something that works as a truth spell in a pinch but of course there's no reason you'd believe that if you don't already believe me in general. This isn't really a problem back home because there aren't mals that can hold an intelligent conversation." And if nobody in the fort has a solution and they have to sleep outside, well, at least there's no curfew and they can stick together and take turns keeping watch.

"There's truth magic, there's also ways to beat truth magic, there's expensive ways to be sure but we mostly save those for emergencies, maybe ol' Nines will say a truth spell's good enough or maybe he won't, I just can't myself promise anything. Sleeping right out in front of the fort is pretty safe, anyway, because we have archers on the walls who can see invisible things and some of them are paladins on top of that."

"That makes sense. We're fine with whatever security precautions your people think are appropriate." When in Shanghai.

They're charming kids, which is probably evidence in favor of the hypothesis that they are demons. Most eighteen year olds are incredibly annoying. He'd know, he takes them as apprentices. 

"Did you have more questions while we walk over? The translation spell'll last about an hour."

"What kinds of things are easy with magic and what kinds are hard? Do you need to build mana and if so how do you do it and how much does capacity vary between people? Is all your magic mathematical spells or do you also have artificing and alchemy, or other things we don't have? Is the ability to do magic inherited? How many people have it? Is everyone at the Worldwound a wizard or, the other thing, sorcerers, or are there also a bunch of mundanes with guns? What's the government like here? Is anything illegal that you wouldn't expect to be obvious?"

"Uh, easy for our kind of wizards - doing a light, or moving things that aren't heavy around, or changing the flavor or texture of food, or making water hotter or colder. Wizards can do those things pretty much for as long as they can concentrate on doing them. Pretty easy - making basic protective force armor, protecting someone from hot or cold weather, disguising yourself, setting a basic alarm spell - those are all first circle. Second circle is, like, invisibility, energy resistance, glitterdust, seeing invisibility, mental and physical enhancement spells, minor temporary extradimensional spaces. ...obviously there are hundreds and hundreds of things people know how to do, but these are the classic ones you use all the time in this line of work, that everyone thinks of first.

Third circle's Fireball - you can throw a little fire before third circle but the standard 'drop an explosion at a great distance' is third - and Fly, and Haste, and Heroism, and these fake horses, and the translation spell I'm using, and short range scrying and dispelling. Fourth circle's short range teleportation and invisibility that stays in place in combat and long range scrying and dimensional anchor and Stoneskin. Fifth circle's a proper Teleport, and Mage's Private Sanctum, and Dominate Person and Polymorph and Permanancy. Sixth circle's an Antimagic Field and a forcible Teleport and Chain Lightning and Contingency and more comprehensive dispelling and telepathy and geases and so on. Seventh circle is greater teleport and greater scrying and true demiplanes and magnificent mansions and mass flight and mass invisibility and Limited Wish. Eighth circle the big ones I've heard of are Mind Blank and Clone. Ninth circle - man, name something, ninth circle wizards can probably do it. They burn down cities, or raise islands out of the sea, or scar land forever so magic never works there again, or stop time, or become gods."

"I think we get some of the fire and blasting type stuff quicker, and shields, and maybe dispelling though how much power it takes for our magic to dispell how much of your magic is an open question. And Franklin and I might have an advantage in turning things into items. And Abigail has a bunch of things that you didn't list at all that might be useful."

"I have an affinity for spells that affect the senses, both impairing them and improving them. I can give people the ability to see invisible things, or magic, or in complete darkness, or around corners, or connect two people so they both hear anything the other hears, things like that. All temporary, but I can do a lot of them as potions so I don't have to be right there when you need it."

"I expect a fort will pay well for any of that. We can do some of those things but as spells expensive enough we can't have them generally available to every patrol. If patrols can go out with potions for emergencies, that stretches our resources a lot farther. An affinity is a - specialization? Mine is enhancement of the self."

"Yes, spells in one's affinity are easier to learn and cost less mana. We build mana by doing anything effortful and we can pass it to each other--the four of us can share with each other at a distance but for anyone else it'd be by touch. Is that all the same for you?" 

"Spellcasters are limited in how much they can do in a day, recover with rest, and - cannot share spellcasting capacity with one another at all, that I've ever heard of. That sounds unbelievably useful."

Recovering mana by resting is complete bullshit. On the other hand it sounds like they can't bank mana across days to eventually do something awesome with it.

"Huh! Now I kind of want to see if I can give you a bit of mana and whether you can do anything with it." It would be incredibly lame if their comparative advantage turned out to be mana farming for the local wizards to cast with, but you sell what you've got and it's an interesting experiment.