"Sure, let me play one of the waterwalking spells. Unfortunately, I don't count as a valid caster so it won't do anything but it sounds nice." He gets something out of his backpack and soon there's a quiet contemplative song playing. Ellayania will be able to understand the words that sing about water flowing smoothly and holding together.

"Who counts as a valid caster?"

"With most of the magic systems we've found so far it's mostly heritable with some additional fuzziness where people either unexpectedly are or are not magic users. Idelia follows that rule. Magecrafters, Wanderdeep's empowered, probably don't, one of the magecrafters known to the Institute had a child and they don't have the power."

"Idelia is the songs?"

"It's what they call their world. They call the songs Omecani, the closest translation is 'The Music of Creation.' They sing a lot, even leaving aside the magic music."

"I suppose there are worse ways to run things."

"There certainly are. I wasn't the explorer on site for that one but I've visited. It's a really nice place. It has its problems but everywhere does."

"How often do you find new worlds?"

"Find isn't quite the correct term. We're gradually expanding our sphere of influence and we're trying not to send explorers too far in advance of our ability to offer support. It takes a lot of nearby infrastructure to handle the integration of a new world, and we also have military forces built up around exploration hubs in case we encounter anyone unfriendly. We're just starting to explore your local neighborhood. We know of three other likely candidates with some signs of magic and one other non-magical world with humans and about a hundred worlds that we think might be life-bearing in this area."

"What usually happens when you make contact with a world?"

"Well, usually, the explorer on site has a series of teleports mapped out. We talk with the people we encounter and travel between different areas of the world. Under some circumstances, an explorer will contact local governments and open negotiations but usually that would be left to the survey teams. They have more specialized ambassadors with them."

"How long's the delay between explorer and survey team? I know there's there's a four-day communications lag."

"Survey comes once I've finished my initial look around and I send back that I don't think there's any existential threats. Tentatively, I think that's the case. I'll probably jump to at least one other section of this world before I send the all clear though."

"You might want to be a bit careful teleporting into random domains. Some gods smite first and ask questions later. Not many, these days, but some."

"Huh, I guess I'm protected from direct magic but any moderately creative god could get around that. I could just travel between the domains on foot but that would be a pain. Hm, Ellayania would you be open to helping me build one of Arabek's first airplanes?"

"She says yes, but only if you agree to tell the people you meet that she did."

"I have no objections to doing so. Hm, it'll take me a bit to draw up plans but I can probably keep talking while I'm doing it. Anything else you wanted to discuss?"

"Are you going to need specialized tools?"

"My body can replace most tools that are not specific to nano-assembly, how good a plane I'll be able to produce will depend on how able Ellayania is able to duplicate things I couldn't assemble myself."

"Like what?"

"Like more solar fabric, a better motor than I could make out of ore I mined myself those are the big ones. I could also use some composite materials for the body and wings instead of trying to find aluminium or settling for canvas."

"How big is the plane going to be?"

"Big enough for me and my backpack. Not much bigger than that though, large wingspan say ten and a half meters."

"That... should be doable."

"Wonderful, I think I have examples of all the components I'd want with me for Ellayania to look at and I can explain how she might use each of them to aid her people should she choose to."