"...faster since we got away, but not hasty."

"What would he wait for? He can't get any more information, and my world is dangerous but not much more than the one you're used to, if the only difference is that mine has magic."

"He can examine your belongings and think of more detailed plans and scout possible sites and try to get more mortals."

"—and mortals can die."

"...yes, what about it?"

"If Thorn gets mortals then—that's it, for them. Being tortured and then dying, no chance of—anything more."

"I'm pretty sure he won't kill any by accident."

"And I don't know if that's any more reassuring. Okay I really should find a way to preempt him."

"The other mortals probably won't be from your world."

"That doesn't make me any happier."

"It should. If they're not from there they can't provide him useful information on how to get there and operate stealthily."

"...I suppose you're right. Why would he not get a human from my world?"

"I'd never heard of your world before, so it's probably less commonly contacted than the other mortal world."

"Yeah but I mean, why wouldn't he just go there now that he knows of it?"

"It depends on whether he can specify a gate destination off what you left."

"He definitely can, those books contain enough information to get places."

"Well, then there may be a problem."

"Yeah, that's why I'm worried and thinking I might just go spy on him anyway. After I figure out a safer plan than just showing up and hoping I'm really undetectable."

Nod.

"I'm trying to think of a way to—the problem here is that if I'm deaf I can't spy but if I'm not I can be ordered. And even deaf someone could just write 'stop' in front of me and I'd be done.—I'm sorry, should I not talk about this with you?"

"No, it's fine. You can't elaborately specify that you want to - hear things on a delay or something - that would probably work as well as seeing writing after it's written would -"

"—oh. Hmm. I probably could do something like that, actually, yeah. We should test it to make sure but yes it should be possible."

"Okay. I can help with that part."

He smiles. "Thank you. Now... I should probably do something to cancel out sound around me and then an artefact that records it and plays it back..." He rubs his chin and stops talking, looking a bit lost in thought.

"Why an artefact?"