"No, I haven't. I should try that!"

"Interesting. Once I thought to make the attempt, it felt completely easy and natural. I wonder if I can... no, it doesn't seem like I can turn myself into a dragon, or an algolthu, or even an elf or orc, just a Kitsune. What an unexpected discovery!"

"Sounds like you've got some Kitsune ancestry, then!" She can decide whether or not to have the second pair of arms in this form, neat!

"Hmm, I wonder if--" she does a cartwheel. (Her clothes are extremely cooperative with this, as they were with shifting in the first place.) "Yeah I'm definitely more coordinated now, I couldn't do that before! Nice.

Anyway, I had questions--is light bending around things known to be how invisibility works and if so how do invisible people see? Can outsiders have kids with each other as well as with humans and what happens when those kids die, do they get sorted? How are constructs made, and how are their personalities determined? Why are there elemental planes of the things there are elemental planes of and not other things? Have people definitely found all the elemental planes there are or could there be an elemental plane of methane, or of spaghetti?" (If you can have an elemental plane of 'all the kinds of dirt and rocks', at that point why not an elemental plane of spaghetti?)

"Most kinds of invisibility are glamor effects or transmutation effects that change the properties of the matter they effect to let light pass through, but that doesn't really make sense as a descriptor for light since even visible light can pass through itself and you said you didn't have any access to other planes anyway. The former gives you an illusory image of your surroundings, while that latter moves you sideways to the ethereal plane and only allows you to perceive and interact with a limited fraction of light. Native outsiders can have kids normally, as can many of those hailing from the elemental planes, but those from the outer planes typically can only have children with mortals. Half-mortal or native outsiders go to afterlives like everyone else, but the ones from the elemental planes die forever when they're killed just like angels and demons. Constructs can be made like any other magic item, typically with or without a specific personality at their creation but some of the more advanced ones can obtain one over time. Supposedly Pharasma made the elemental planes alongside the rest of creation, but other than some difficult to interview qlippoth she's the only one that was there. There's not really any room for another elemental plane in the inner sphere but maybe she made another set elsewhere far enough away that nobody has found it, or even some planes outside the normally understood boundaries of creation that she didn't make!

"How did you travel to here, what gave you the ability to get the abilities from other species, and are they the same thing? If you've only been here a short while and your home universe didn't have magic, where did you get your magic items and permanent spells from? You said your power gives you access to sorcerery, does copying multiple sorcerous bloodlines let you cast higher circle spells? More spells? A wider variety?"

"My universe was visited by a . . . traveler, who helped me get here and gave me the copy ability and some other abilities." She cycles her eye colour through the rainbow by way of convenient example. "I'd rather not explain the magic items and permanent spells. I've only tried the one sorcerous bloodline so far--I guess it's possible the earth elementals I met had one, but there was enough going on that I didn't ask them for permission and it'd feel weird to do it now.

What happens when someone inherits two bloodlines the normal way? Does there not being room for more elemental planes mean people understand how they're arranged in higher-dimensional space? Where do demiplanes go? Do you know whether having four arms will let me wear four rings without them messing with each other?"

"Usually they just get less general sorcery from a weaker bloodline and some abilities corresponding to each source, I think, but I haven't gotten around to running any actual tests to measure if it's true or universal or to what extent. The ethereal plane and the shadow plane mirror the material one, while the inner planes - the planes of fire, water, earth, air, positive, and negative energy - surround the material plane in higher dimensions. The astral plane intersects and contains all of the inner planes and material and stretches from there to the outer planes, where souls go when they die; souls go to their afterlife through it. All of the outer planes are supposedly set in a bubble that separates them from an outside reality that's somewhat similar to the maelstrom or the abyss, though it's hard to measure other than indirectly. Demiplanes are little pockets of reality adjacent to another plane, usually the astral or ethereal plane, where space gets pinched off into a separate space not contiguous in to anywhere else in three dimensions; one exceptional example of this is they fey realm, which is an exceptionally large self-contained bubble between the positive energy plane and the material. You can only have two rings on at a time even with extra limbs - and the same goes with feet and boots - but if the rings are well made you can actually put both on one hand.

"Can you imitate things that aren't people, like animals or rocks? What about the undead? Are there any other abilities that traveler gave you that you've made use of since you got here? Where did the traveler come from, were they someone from here like Desna or from your planet or from somewhere else entirely? Does magic normally not function where you came from, or was it just that nobody was able to use it? How many people live on your home planet?"

"Animals yes, plants and rocks no, undead depends which kind. Yes, I have things for strength and toughness and fighting skill and for learning faster and for always wearing the most practical clothes for the occasion and for seeing through illusions and for staying clean and not getting sick, and also there's one going right now that's making this conversation take less time than it otherwise would. We'd probably sound like we're talking insanely fast if anyone walked by*. The traveler was from somewhere way far away, I don't know where exactly. The traveler's magic functioned so it was definitely possible for things outside the simple elegant physics that were usually operative to happen but I don't know how interactions between universes with different physics work in general. For all I know this world has different chemistry and my body has been converted to the local format. I know some experiments I could do to start checking but I'd need some insects, a potted plant, a candle, an airtight container, some wood, a scale, and a free afternoon with no demon nonsense. Or for you to be hanging out with me while I did it so the faster conversation magic would kick in. Six billion and change; more every year."

*Brenda has been talking very fast even relative to her own frame of reference for most of this conversation.

"Ooh, what counts as seeing through an illusion, I specialize in those. Is it like true seeing, where you can also see through polymorph effects? If I make a silent image to demonstrate something, can you choose to see it or is it like there's nothing there? What about color spray, does it also prevent that from affecting your mind? Can you scry through a screen? What happens if you look at an illusion from far away that's producing real light, or legitimately blocking light from leaving? What are the conditions for speeding up time, presumably it's not just when you're doing science or else time would never pass for you? I don't have all the things you'd need for that experiment but I bet we can find them in Kenabres if we go looking."

"I wouldn't expect it to see through polymorph effects because those actually change the person's physical form and not just their appearance. I can choose to see it but only if there's something I know I should be choosing to see. It should block color spray. I can't scry at all yet, can I copy the spell from you? We should try a bunch of things with illusions but probably I see the light that enters my eyes by default. I'm not always doing science, sometimes I'm asleep or reading books or fighting demons, but anyway it's when I'm talking to a friend, which is part of why I want you there for the chemistry but also I want you there because it would be more fun if you were. I told Terendelev I would help sweep the city for surviving demons but I bet we'll be done by tomorrow morning, there's hardly any."

Nenio is already pulling out her spellbook before Brenda finishes talking, though it takes a bit longer than it should because they're trying to do it one handed while also writing with the other one and the quality of both tasks is suffering a bit. After a little trial and error, though, she props the book open to one of the later pages; the spell diagram follows the same principles Brenda would have seen before, but it mixes the notation she's encountered before with yet more unfamiliar script and shorthand.

"It doesn't seem to stabilize for wizards below fourth circle, which is disappointing because song sorcerers get it at third and I can't cast fourth circle spells yet, but I do have a copy. I don't have any current experiments I need demons for but maybe there will be some cultists with them. I should transform back first, though, in case my being a kitsune would change what kind of answers they give me."

After a brief look of concentration, the spiky black hair and human features from before make their return.

"Odd. For some reason, now that I've returned to my human form, it feels somehow less natural than being a kitsune. Perhaps there's something inherently appealing in being a fox, or simply a desire for novelty. I should test that once I can cast polymorph."

Brenda deduces the meaning of most of the shorthand, asks questions about the rest, and copies the whole thing onto her back (she's been chatting with Alpina via an occasional hand in a pocket for much of the afternoon but it's not the right time to drop everything and figure out spell ink). 

"Thank you! You're welcome to tag along and interview any cultists we see, but if they attack you I will kill them. I prefer human form to fox form; maybe it's because you're actually a human-foxperson hybrid for real and I just copied it or maybe you just care more about trying new shapes. Turning into other stuff sounds like a great way to find out."

The ground floor of the house where she sensed the other demon is empty of everything other than a mess, which evidently comes from both the broken down door and various toppled shelves. The lack of people in the basement, however, is not nearly so innocuous; there are several armed corpses lying on the ground, though it’s hard to tell if they perished from the bleeding or the ice. In one corner of the basement lurks a shadowy presence, which might be difficult for even Brenda’s eyes to pick out if it wasn’t glowing like a beacon to her Aeon senses.

Brenda spots the thing out of the corner of her eye and points without looking directly at it. "Anyone know what the shadow being is?" she murmurs, fully prepared for it to understand what she said and attack but hoping to take advantage of the possibility that it doesn't.

Unfortunately, shadow demons have remarkably keen senses. Listening in on a whispered conversation in an otherwise quiet room, even from twenty feet away, doesn’t even require any particular effort on their part. It might well hear Brenda more clearly than the people she’s whispering to.

Normally, the thing to do when you’re outnumbered and trapped is to take down the person who can detect you, but the problem with that plan is that the two of the other party members appear to be a  Paladin and a Wizard; it won’t be able to hide from them once they know to start looking either. That means it needs to thin the numbers a bit - the wizard, then, since magic can hit incorporeal targets and they’re probably rather easy to kill.

“That sounds like a shadow demon-”

Ah shit here it comes, she draws Lariel's sword with one hand and the pocket where she keeps her flashlight with the other, whether it's ordinary logic or Battle Demon instincts she knows she wants light--

and before she gets her hand into her backpack the sword lights up like a streetlight, not from its own power this time, but starting under her hand and spreading almost instantaneously up from the hilt along the blade. It's high noon in this basement now.

The demon shrieks as it suddenly becomes visible, and breaks off its charge to make for the rubble at the back corner of the basement; for the first second, it's moving noticeably slower under the influence of the bright light, but then it suddenly puts on a burst of speed.

"-they hate bright light, but they can block out lower level forms of magic light if they have somewhere dark to use their abilities. Glitterdust should make sure it cant vanish on us, though."

A cloud of sparkling golden dust covers the demon as it tries to slip out of sight.

Wenduag tries tagging it with some arrows, and looks very annoyed when they just pass through.

"They're also incorporeal, so you need magic to hit them!"

"I don't have much offensive magic yet, can you get it?" Everyone is looking at the demon. Magnesium hair ornament. Yeet.

The magnesium elicits another flinch reaction as it passes through, and it scrabbles around for another crevasse.

"They're also resistant to most spells!" Nenio offers cheerfully, as one of the air of magic missiles they launch fizzles out on contact.  "Magic weapons work a bit more reliably, but they're less harmed by anything primarily physical unless it's specifically enchanted for the job."

"Sounds like we need to stop it from getting out of the light, then."

Seelah ducks low in an attempt to keep from casting a shadow on it, and starts pulling away bricks from the collapsed pile in the corner.