"Not all of them, there's a lot of small amplification built into some runic devices. The powerful ones have to be big, though, and so they're either part of things like ships, or they're basically buildings into themselves, like Runic Transceiver Arrays. But they have Jump Matrixes in some pretty small ships, so I don't really know how small they can be, other than they have to be big enough for the ship. And...it might or might not be a permanent borrowing, it might be some kind of ambassadorial mission. You know the discussion about influencing other cultures, but the risks of not doing it? If your world is facing some kind of...like...demon invasion or whatever, or regularly starving from lack of food or metals, I would be at least writing a report about the justifications of trying to take action, and I think Montoya would be too, just in a more formal way. Especially if we were formally requested to help by some sort of official entities on your side."

"That would be--very helpful. Potentially game-changingly so. If that's a possibility, I should prioritize finding some way to get back and forth repeatedly, so I could bring an embassy without stranding them on Golarion."

Probably that looks like summoning an angel who can teach her how to attune a fork; she knows anyone who can cast Plane Shift can learn how to do it but it's fiddly and complicated and she had never made time for it. Unclear whether that was an error; "sent to an alien civilization of potentially extremely helpful people" was not predictable even in hindsight.

"I should give you more context on the demon invasion. I mentioned the Worldwound was a Planar rift to the Abyss and demons come out of it, but it's less a single invasion and more an ongoing series of waves that's been going on for most of a century. There's a barrier of Wardstones around the Wound that it's hard for demons to cross, and fortresses with patrols of the border to kill the ones that get through, but sometimes a demon is powerful enough to get a bunch of them working together to attack a fort and the Wardstone line gets pushed back. And occasionally we take some territory and can move the line in. We're losing ground, but more slowly than we were at the beginning, and we learn and the demons don't, but there are always more of them and only so many defenders, so--it's hard to say what the long term looks like."

Forrester blinks. "Well, shit. I'm sorry about that. How more of an ongoing war is it? Like, you talk about waves, but...I guess you wouldn't know any of the wars I might compare it to."

"There's been five Crusades in the time the Wound has been open--those are the times the forces of Good and Law have gathered up more forces than they could deploy sustainably and pushed to take back territory. But someone from any given fort will see action any given week if not necessarily any given day, and fight off an at least somewhat serious raid a few times a year. One saving grace is that they can't keep a large enough force together long enough for a full encirclement and siege most times, so you fight them off that day and see how sustainable your losses were. Also this is all just from what I've heard; I haven't gone up there myself yet." 

"Hmm. So low intensity, but....basically always going on.That's not good," Forrester says.

"It's probably the worst thing on Golarion I'm aware of. Definitely top three. . . . Top five if you count things that aren't actively causing problems right now but would be a lot worse if they stopped being contained."

"That...is a troubling list to consider it sounds like," Forrester says. "It makes our situation look a lot simpler, at least we're not fighting some big war."

"We're managing, but it's sort of a 'keeping things going until we find some way to really change the game' situation. And hey, maybe this will turn out to be it!"

"Hopefully," Forrester says, trying to look happier as she starts to lead Samora out of the serving area to the seating, a mix of small tables and longer cafeteria-style benches, filled with a mix of people in casual wear, officewear, work formalwear, and Marine uniforms or physical training outfits. None are in the armor the Marines on duty in the lobby were, and several of the Marines' eyes catch and hang on Samora's armor and sword as they become visible to the seating.

Forrester's smile turns into a laugh as they pass a last display. "Here, try one of these too," Forrester says, and slides a plastic-wrapped brownie onto Samora's tray "One brownie, totally mundane, just as the Mage-Liaison ordered."