"No. Well, I don't know what's happened in the last fifty years but I don't think so."

"Wh—fifty years?"

"I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know, just—" Sigh. "Anyway, wh—why don't fairies take over the mortal world? If they can command anyone by knowing their name or I guess feeding them? Or is everyone there aware of fairies and using nicknames...?"

"No, they aren't - weren't fifty years ago - uh, sorcery doesn't work there and we wouldn't be able to safely eat anything."

"Oh. ...does sorcery rely on the magic thing that's literally everywhere here?"

"...I don't know what you're looking at."

"There's this—thing—that's everywhere and it's sorta shaped like the environment but is particularly disturbed by people, relatively speaking, and when you became invisible it sorta—moved? Or, not exactly moved, but it was like something moved through it or—something?"

"- harmonics?"

"Maybe? The name's suggestive, it does sorta look like a wavy harmonics-y thing—what is it?"

"It's a - feature of the environment. It helps to know where the harmonics are to do sorcery."

"Okay, my world doesn't have that so sorcery probably doesn't work there either, Thorn won't have a complete overwhelming advantage."

"I think kind magic still works in the mortal world."

"Yeah, I'd expect so, it doesn't seem to rely on the harmonics in the same way. I—can't comment on how sorcery differs from my world's magic, but without it and with some advance warning I think my world's mages could put up a fight."

"Thorn collects sorcerers. Good ones."

"—collects. Creepy. No, what I mean is, if Thorn or his vassals go to my world they won't have sorcery so that won't be much of a problem and—I think a metamancer could counter a sorcerer pretty easily but that's not a resource my world's going to use anyway so I'm thinking about myself more than anything."

"Thorn doesn't collect particularly good kind magic."

Nod.

Sigh.

"This whole system is terrible and I hate it."

"Mmhm."

Follow follow.

"I think it'll take another four hours this pace to get somewhere I'm comfortable stopping long enough to make a gate."