"You may say your inferences, if you wish to demonstrate your ability." She doesn't ask it as a question.

"It's probably not super smart to try to develop my own form of magic, and the Astrologer probably doesn't have a lot of actual power, were the ones I thought of."

"Imprecise, but well guessed. The Astrologers no doubt can do anything they claim, and some of it may involve quite a lot of power. But without having established a long relationship with their spirits they will be extended less credit, so to speak."

She nods. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"Are you expecting to oppose them, then?"

She almost answers, then purses her lips.

"There is no risk of answering wrongly when saying it would align your predictions to fit."

"Okay. I'm not expecting to oppose them, no, I'm merely curious."

"A worthy reason, though few things are mere."

"I'm very curious?" she tries.

The Sphinx smiles.

"Anyway, thank you for your time. I'll get out of your way, now."

"Use the knowledge wisely. It is nearly as valuable as the ability to acquire it."

She nods. "Thank you." And off she goes.

She doesn't have any urgent next stops planned! The nonurgent next stop, once she gets around to picking up plot threads, involves the kind of thing Isadora in particular should definitely not know about.

...right. That. Yeah. They should get on that, shouldn't they?

Not urgently! Her allies aren't enthusiastic about it. It's a serious fight against a much stronger opponent, there's very little known about it, and unlike with the imps they don't get to choose the ground. It should probably be Sealed—or preferably bound—eventually, but the situation's stable.

Still, it's probably smart to start collecting the resources they'll need.

That's simple enough, but only in general terms. The demon does have weaknesses. All they know about its description is that it's scary.

Nobody has a good way to weaponize creation, other than maintaining the graffiti-bound walls, but lots of light is doable.

Well... what if they use creation for defence instead of offence?

Sure, that's easy. They know from the existing binding that creation as in art counts, so they could draw all over anywhere they want to step. (Or anywhere they want to look; the demon is probably high-level enough to be unsafe to see directly.) But defense won't win the battle.

No, but it's the first thing they need to. And if they draw—or, even easier, write—everywhere they want to step, that buys them space to actually set their attack up.

Yes, this is not news. The attack can be based on light; most demons in the Choir of Darkness are vulnerable to that. But that's probably closer to vulnerable as in "cannot be harmed except by weapons that are in some way light-themed" than as in "literally dissolves under a flashlight." Lightsabers and lasers are out; too fictional. Could set up bladed weapons to be continually reflecting light, but no one has any good ranged ideas.

Which is why no one's gone in so far. That they remember. Close quarters combat with a demon sounds like it would be messy even if it worked, and surrenders a lot of the space they could earn by creating.

Well, floodlights are an idea. And the Astrologer's constructs are, technically, very light-based.

...why on Earth would some local practitioner help them. If this works they might end up with a demon they can make deals with or even order around; pretty much everyone is anti-that. Floodlights are a good idea, of course.