"Which can be pretty soon, now that there's a portal planet I think my alt was planning to arrange for a portal and then go say hello."

"My point is we don't want to let any mages summon if we can't have them be mage daeva. The one who summoned Minor seems great but there's just one of him."

"'can't have' is a bit strong but - would be complicated to handle and there are already a lot of things that are going to be complicated to handle...otherwise they die, though..."

"Yeah."

"We can talk it over with Bright before he leaves."

Nod.

"Stork's a better place to roll out summoning because they've got stuff to trade and are mostly literate, but I'd want to consult a local and Kib is - not likely to be okay with that -"

"With being consulted or with bringing in someone else?"

"With being consulted, mostly, I think. With signs about where the plot is going, generally..."

Nod.

"We could probably do stuff in Stork without local guidance. But it's not urgent."

"We could get someone else from there."

"Yeah. Think we should?"

"As opposed to flying blind, definitely."

"No, I mean as opposed to leaving it be."

"I would actually like to add servants to the repertoire and Kib's not gonna help."

"Okay. Portal planet can open to Stork, too, and we can conduct interviews and find helpful locals."

"And pay demons in obedient cats!"

"I wonder if you have to be, uh, not born there, but sort of born there to get it working or if it's a species thing."

"Good question. Are the Elves there likely to be having kids, with the war going on only in the other world?"

"Elf rules about children-having are mysterious to me."

"Me too."

"I guess you could just check?"

"Only if they would have had them already, which might say more about how long it's taking them to rearchitect the city or something."

"It's been, what, forty years? Since the first portal..."