"I am a human. I am not entirely sure what that statement means because of the language issue and because on... my planet... humans are the only intelligent species and no other species looks very similar so the question would never arise. I don't know what 'elves' are." (The word translates for some reason but she has to draw the line of remote plausibility somewhere.) "We know of other stars and planets, astronomically, but have no positive evidence for life on any of the other planets in our own system and our technology does not yet allow interplanetary let alone interstellar travel, does yours?"

This cheerful harvest costume festival certainly doesn't look like a spacefaring society but Tanya is now a tiny bit uncertain about this, which is a lot more uncertain than she'd like! 

“We know multiple other planets around our sun are inhabited.  A greater teleport is insufficient to travel to them, there are inconsistent legends of a 9th circle teleport that can.  Multiple plane shifts can get to them, but this is inconsistent, there is some complication with planar adjacency and dimensional structure that makes two plane shifts insufficient and you need to leverage multiple planes, and divine treaties limit the ability of non-Chaotic planes to deliberately enable this travel.  A Gate with the appropriate technique might be able to directly reach other planets?  Sending can only intermittently reach other planets.  Again with limits and inconsistencies related to planar structure.  A standard Wish wording should be able to transport people to anywhere in creation but that is too expensive for standard trade and communication.”

She takes a moment to think over the options she described.

“I’m not an expert on any of these topics, merely well read, a specialist in the relevant forms of magic might be able to tell you more.”

Also, Terendelev is skeptical, but in the event this woman is telling the truth it would be quite a shock to discover she is stranded and that humans exist on other planets.  She’ll hold off on trying to poke holes in this story.

“You are short for an adult human… I assumed you were fully grown based on your proficiency with magic?  You could be a halfling?  I’m not actually sure tongues wouldn’t mistakenly identify label you as human if your species was most similar to humans but shorter.”

"I am not quite fully grown, and also short for a human of my age." She is fourteen years old, but saying that tends to leave the wrong impression. This planet presumably has years of a different length anyway. "I don't - recognize most of the technical terms you used, except that some have apparent literal meanings which I am guessing it is better to ignore than to rely on. ...and my planet does not know of spells that could impart knowledge, such as of a language, but scientific magical research is less than a century old and has advanced rapidly in that time."

"Forgive me for being blunt, but if all this is true then linking another planet and its civilizations to those already communicating would be of paramount importance. You mentioned a spell too expensive for ordinary use, but even one or a few instances of transporting a single person could enable communication of knowledge of enormous value. I obviously do not know if I personally have any valuable knowledge or locally-useful skills to pay for transit," in fact she doesn't know if her entire planet does, "but trade between unequal partners is still beneficial regardless of comparative advantage." Does that still hold when the trade is very intermittent and in non-material goods only - the math does but the transaction costs could be too high - she shouldn't try to guess, she should see how the locals react.

Tanya really hopes she's not playing the part of a naive native exposing her world to colonization by an interplanetary civilization with superior technology, but - these people who healed a stranger probably aren't worse than the alternative which is the fucking commies, and they are her only ticket home. She hasn't yet thought through why she even wants a way back home where there's a murderous losing war waiting for her, she just knows she does. (Being interplanetary ambassador would be a terrific upgrade from her last posting but she is not in fact specialized in diplomacy other than the gunboat kind.)

"Your planet's magic must have advanced quickly, your 'computation orb' looks quite impressive from what I can tell."  She still hasn't figured it out but she can tell it is something very intricate and general purpose and somehow has internal moving parts relevant to it's magic?  It's not entirely unprecedent, armillary amulets have turning rings, but it is very unusual. 

"You should talk to the church of Abadar.  Finding and promoting beneficial trade opportunities is one of the primary interests of Abadar.  They would probably have both the resources to finance a Wish and a strong interest in enabling inter-world trade."  And they would have the resources to identify a fraud or madwoman long before it got that far.

That sounds wonderful except for the word 'church'! And Hulrun asked what gods she worshipped, and - she missed it at the time, but didn't the woman call Hulrun a prelate?

How do you end up with a highly religious interstellar civilization? Her world is also highly religious (perhaps not for much longer, if projections from her first world hold) but people in developed nations know to separate religion from business! It's not that she doesn't want churches to be devoted to trade, it's that she doesn't want traders to belong to churches! Tanya is a firm believed in progress and the conquest of ignorance by human rationality, so it's very distressing to see a more technologically advanced civilization be so culturally retarded!

...of course she'll talk to this church of Abadar, she knows how to deal with religious people. She was raised in a nun-run orphanage, for Christ's sake! But they did it literally for Christ's sake and not for the sake of themselves, Tanya, or society in general. They provided a valuable service to society and she is hardly about to castigate them for it, but it would have been so much better if everyone involved had done it for clear-headed rational reasons and not because they thought a sky bogeyman told them to do it. Tanya has met the sky bogeyman and he didn't care whether she had run an orphanage!

Deep breath. Bright fake smile.

"Thank you for your advice. If you will indulge me another moment, I have a request. If it wouldn't inconvenience you, could you show me or direct me to irrefutable evidence that I am on another planet? For example, if I could talk to an alien - someone of a clearly nonhuman species - that would likely resolve my remaining doubts much better than seeing novel magic however unprecedented." And better than knowledge of a language, which could be due to a spell they claim exists but also claim they didn't cast on her or could be related to her period of missing memories.

"There are plenty of nonhuman people just at this festival."

Sure enough, although most of the crowd is human, there are a few shorter people with pointed ears and colored hair, a few people with green or purple skin, and various other exotic traits.

"Although I suppose you can't rule out transmutation magic?"

Terendelev is assuming from the silent stilled haste effect (at least that is her best guess as to what it is) this woman has used that of course her civilization would have powerful transmutation magic.

"Actually, what is possible for your magic, maybe a common and affordable spell would be good enough evidence for you?  You actually already said something that made me think your divination magic must be very limited."

It would be convenient if a commonly taken for granted spell like prestidigitation would serve as firm evidence.  Speaking of which, Terendelev should be thinking of some tests and checks on this woman's claims.

Short people with colored hair? What is this, a rubber-forehead old TV show? Tanya knew short people with colored hair in her first life! She grew up (for the first time) in modern Tokyo and has proper respect for the truly alien!

"I... assumed those were costumes, or magical illusions? None of them look very different from humans... You said it was surprising that there would be humans on other planets; I find it even more surprising that there would be alien species so similar to humans and yet different! Unless they all share ancestry in the very remote past?"

As for magic, well. "For myself, I can produce light and heat, fly - a much more complex spell than simply pushing objects - detect and analyze magic, create audiovisual illusions which are obviously magical, protect myself from light, heat and kinetic impacts... Those are all general-purpose and commonly used." That is to say, her other spells are not general-purpose because their only purpose is war. 

"But there is an enormous and quickly-evolving field of industrial magical applications, much of it proprietary or outright secret. I am far from an expert in even what is published publicly, but there are likely hundreds of custom spells in use. I've read of spells being used to fix nitrogen, electroplate steel, refine various minerals, investigate underwater... The main constraint on magic use in the industry is the availability of mages," because the thrice-damned war has everyone digging down all the way to C-rank; "many things are possible but not economical because they cannot be scaled."

"The only things I'm certain haven't been invented are those I would have encountered for myself. If there were magic for sharing knowledge directly with people, even if it was limited to languages or a few other specific subjects - does this mean everyone here knows all languages, do people still need to learn things -"

Tanya is briefly rendered speechless by the prospect of magic replacing the entire institution of education.

"Your magic sounds like abjuration, evocation, illusion, and transmutation primarily.  Detecting and analyzing magic is usually divination.  Magic on this planet also includes conjuration, more varied divinations, enchantment, and necromancy.  I... don't actually know what most of the industrial magic you described is.  Would seeing a priest create water be enough to convince you the magic here is substantially different?  It is a orison for priests, so they can recast it at will.  Which actually brings me to another misunderstanding you seem to have but I'm not sure of the exact source of the confusion... higher circle casters are uncommon.  Share Languages is second circle, Tongues is third for arcane casters (fourth for divine casters).  All of the interplanetary travel magic I mentioned earlier is fifth circle or higher."

Terendelev is unsure if this woman's planet hasn't worked out caster circles yet (possible if they are all spontaneous casters... although that would somewhat imply no divine casters, which would be even stranger)?  Or if they don't have proper spells and instead rely on supernatural abilities that aren't quite spell like (which would explain the silent and still magic)?  Or maybe this woman already meant to imply that higher circle casting was uncommon when she mentioned the availability of mages?  And there is still the possibility this is a demonic plot of some kind... the only thing Terendelev can think of is as a pointless distraction but if you had a new unprecedented memory alteration spell you would think you could find a better use for it than a distraction even if you are a demon cultist.

"And I'm sorry, I think amid all the confusion I failed to introduce myself.  My name is Terendelev.  I am the protector and patron of this city."

...this is an important person! Someone rich and powerful enough they are the patron of an entire (small) city! (And interested in magical research?) Who is spending her valuable time talking to Tanya, not even telling her to make an appointment with her secretary, because she sees something in Tanya - perhaps an opportunity for investment or patronage? What incredible luck!

She gives a little bow. "It is an honor to meet you. I am Tanya von Degurechaff, a citizen of the Germanian Empire." Thank you for taking the time - no, she doesn't know the local forms of politeness; Terendelev may have given her name expecting Tanya to become more formal or more deferential, or alternatively for her to stop wasting Terendelev's time with lengthy digressions, but she'll have to clearly signal which.

"I'm afraid I don't know what those classifications mean; perhaps researchers from my planet would know. Magic can be used to condense or distill water or create it in a chemical reaction. I haven't heard of water or any matter being created directly out of magical energy, although I am not sure we've ever had a reason to try."

"We classify mages into four ranks according to their mana capacity and innate aptitude for using it, which predicts which magical implements and spells they are likely to be able to master. It is a relatively crude system, designed for tracking child mages into different educational or career paths; there are large variations of skill which emerge later in life and large returns to good education and long practice, although mana capacity is approximately fixed. And of course the orbs and their industrial equivalents keep being improved; the best mage is only as good as their tools. Better mages are exponentially rarer in the population, similarly to other heritable traits like height or intelligence."

Orisons? Priests? Do these people have some kind of religious strictures about using spells more than once or whenever you want to or something? Did their mythological god-figure create water like Jesus created fish and bread and now only priests are allowed to use that spell??? What the fuck, multispecies interstellar civilization? (Tanya is much better about keeping her confusion and revulsion off her face now that she knows she is talking to someone whose favor may be important.)

"I am pleased to meet you Tanya von Degurechaff."

A claim to a noble title slightly raises the odds this is some sort of scam, but it would be unlikely Tanya could retain a Lawful alignment running such scams (assuming Hulrun detected a Lawful alignment and that is why he asked for and was satisified by an oath).

"Does 'mana'* capacity not grow with high intensity, high stakes usage?  And you are saying it can start out higher?  Even sorcerers, with innate magic that develops in childhood still need those conditions to grow past first circle.  For spellcasters of most species, in the best case the ordinary mundane challenges of life are enough to get to second circle over several decades but not any higher.  Or are you saying you can identify people with the potential to grow more easily as early as childhood?  The rate of high circle spellcasters does drop off exponentially, but the common sense explanation is that many die using their magic in high stakes situations, as opposed to an exponential curve in underlying innate potential."

It is a common observation that adventurers don't all grow at the same rate, for a lucky few a single adventure can push them half a circle higher, for most it is slower, and some reach their limit for no sure reason.  Techniques for identifying an underlying factor to this in advance would be extremely valuable, even if high potential casters still needed to adventure to grow stronger.  Of course, most of this is academic for Terendelev, her best bet to grow stronger is to simply live longer.

*Terendelev can recognize the word as an academic term for generic pluripotent magical energy, but it isn't common terminology as typical wizardry only interacts with generic magical energy in a few ways that are actually useful.

"I think mana capacity grows in during early childhood... I'm sure someone must know this but I personally don't; I was tested at age eight and it typically doesn't grow by more than a quarter after that, unless the early growth is stunted by poor health or diet. Skill is the real differentiator; I am a very good mage but my mana capacity is merely average. And skill can be predicted somewhat, on a population level, but there will certainly be individual exceptions to predictions made in childhood."

"It is certainly true that skill best develops and best proves itself in high-stake situations, and many mages do regrettably die, but that is as far as I know a general property of human learning, not one specific to magic."

"...My apologies, I just realized that age in years of my planet means nothing to you. Hmm... Men normally stop growing at age eighteen, and women at fifteen. Puberty starts between twelve and fourteen, younger for women, later when people are malnourished. Most people live to be sixty, many to seventy or eighty but most are infirm, very few past ninety." Here is an illusion clock, her orb can't tell her the date but it works as a precision watch while she's using it so these are accurate seconds. "There are approximately thirty-one and a half million of these divisions of time in an Earth year," she says.

Terendelev takes a moment to do some mental math.  She counts off the how many time units are in a round, then works that out to a day, then a year.

“I think your years are only a few days longer than ours?  And those ages sound right for humans.”

“It’s not just magic that scales with the right kind of experience (but magic is notable for effectively scaling close to quadratically).  Toughness scales linearly, both in how much it takes to hurt someone and how much it takes to heal them.  Ability to resist magic also scales linearly, but not so steeply as to dramatically outweigh underlying aptitude or good training.”

Is this somehow not true on Tanya’s planet?  Terendelev takes a moment to try to think of fundamental basic context to provide, then remembers something very obvious.

“Actually, assuming your story is true-“ she didn’t mean to word it like that but the urgency makes her push past it.

“-the most urgent thing for you to know is that this town, Kenabres, is on the border of a vast extraplanar tear to the Abyss and is regularly under assault by demons and mortal collaborators.  Thanks to the Wardstone and my presence here they usually limit themselves to subversion and sabotage.  I had assumed the people that brought you in were simply undisciplined adventurers and that’s why they failed to make a report, but Hulrun was concerned you might have been used as a distraction for infiltrators.  …Based on what you’ve said of your magic so far, the most out of context magic demons have would be enchantments.  In addition to that, they have a wide range of innate magic, high innate durability and resistances, technically nonmagical abilities like poison, and of course general aptitude for combat.”

Tanya understands less than half of that but the part that she does understand very clearly is: alert, this is a hot war border, forget magical research prepare for action watch for infiltrators!

Tracking all magical signatures within several miles and responding in a split second is subconscious by now, there's a lot of magic and she doesn't recognize any of it and unfamiliar means dangerous, she's not hiding so she almost takes off before she stops herself -

"How can I recognize demons? How can I recognize and counter 'enchantment' spells, what effects do they have? What weapons would demons likely use -" what is a generic categorization - "short or long range, slow or fast or instantaneous delivery, kinetic, explosive, light or heat? Can they fly, how fast and how high, do they have tracking weapons - am I working off a completely wrong threat model because of the technological difference -"

She doesn't question the word 'demons', she's heard plenty worse epithets for one's enemies.

She had started to reorient around tracking Tanya as a magically gifted civilian as opposed to an adventurer, but it sounds like she has some sort of military training?  Terendelev will answer her questions seriously.  She hushes her voice as much as she can, she doesn't want to alarm festival goers, although this concern isn't enough to stop her.

"Their weaponry is like typical mortal weaponry?  Swords, spears, glaives, and scythes for melee combat, bows and crossbows for ranged.  Demon weapons tend to be magical more often than mortal weaponry when they do have weapons, but most demons rely on innate magic or natural weaponry.  Claws, teeth, and horns for basically all types of demons.  Their innate magic is pretty varied.  Of some of the more common types...  Brimoraks can use fireball once in a combat encounter and breathe fire at will.  Babau use spears, have slimy acidic skin, and can Dispel Magic at will.  Succubi can shapeshift and have a range of mind control from outright completely puppeting people with Dominate Person to more frequently creating the convincing persistent belief that they are a friend or ally with Charm Person.  Dretches can create stinking clouds.  Many demon can teleport, basically at will.  All of them are resistant to common weaponry that isn't made of cold iron.  All of them have spell resistance that can make spells fail at some odds if not cast by a strong enough caster.  Actually your abilities may be less like discrete spells but I wouldn't bet on it."

"Many demon are approximately humanoid but much further from humans than anyone you can see here.  But illusions and shapeshifting are both possible. Prelate Hulrun has the ability to detect Chaos and Evil at will, and both together are a strong indicator of a demon or demon cultist, both a lack of these isn't enough, there are spells to conceal alignment."

And there isn't a way to break this gently.

"One thing that is theoretically possible with strong enough enchantments is erasing memory, although I don't know of any particular spell that would hold up to a heal and enough attempts at dispelling it."  She'll see how Tanya takes the obvious conclusion.  Making someone delusional enough to think they are from another world would actually be easier, but Terendelev hold off on explaining that far.

"I think you don't actually need to be alert against being attacked on the streets here, like I already said, Kenabres is secure enough they limit themselves to subversion and sabotage."

He didn't actually want to be the one to bait Terendelev's attention, but that is way too good of a dramatic opportunity he overhears!

He breaks the illusion on himself, impales a festival goer on one of his claws, and hurls them bodily at the child talking to Terendelev!

He's actively scrying the city in general and Terendelev in particular, so he sees that the attack has begun.  He begins his speech while he waits for Terendelev to be in the middle of shapeshifting back into her draconic form (she always changes back into a dragon if she has a moment to spare, and against himself it will just make her an easier target).  His voice can be heard across the entire city.

"Witness me Iomedae!  Witness how my swarm devours your followers!"

Across the city, demons break illusions to attack the people around them.

It wouldn't occur to her that Deskari would come to the material plane in the first place, and indeed she begins to turn back into a dragon.