...

"I hadn't realized things were that bad. I'm sorry." It sounds like humanity barely survived, and even the Beings were welcomed as an improvement. (Just as Being X always wanted.) "It's impressive you regained this much. I hope I can do my part to help civilization grow."

"That's the goal, generally. Make stuff, build things. Art. Industry. Science. Progress... Let's go inside."

Tanya follows her inside. "I have to say I'm very disconcerted by the nuclear weapons. Using just one could be a catastrophe, but so could the fissile material leaking into the water or air due to improper handling or containment finally failing. Do you have Geiger counters? ...ah, non-magical radiation detectors. I... don't actually know how to build one."

"I was assured by people I consider reliable that it was taken care of and would not present significant ongoing risks. I wasn't interested in the details, since they were nonmagical weapons."

"I was more worried about the unlocated silos you mentioned must exist! Do your friends have radiation detectors? They'd be key to finding any leaks, either from known or hidden sites. And to avoiding contaminated areas, obviously."

"Hmm. The nine faces front did pay me design an artifact to detect radiation, at one point... Ah, they're the equivalent here to Noten's 'inquisition', if that word is familiar. Religious investigation organization. Atsos's mirror organization, the nine faces, is more decentralized, less hard power in comparison."

Up the stairs they go. She does three separate spells to undo locks and traps before opening her lab door.

Investigating radiation spills is a definite improvement on investigating heresy and witchcraft, but it's insane to trust nuclear safety to a religious organization!!! What if they decide God actually wants some heretical sect to be irradiated?!

Tanya can't do anything about this, she can't even build a Geiger counter, but she does not like it.

The broader implications may take her some to process. There was an ancient, lost civilization with much better technology (and possibly worse magic?) which destroyed itself completely, leading to a long dark age and the rise of religion. This might help recontextualize some previous information! (Also, Sinnah is many centuries old? Are kitsune immortal, or perhaps simply serially reincarnated? This might be insensitive to ask and she shelves it for later.)

There are radio transmissions, but the general public seems to be unaware of them; the information clerk mentioned rumors about ancient artifacts but Tanya didn't have the context to understand that yet. She was worried about making enemies by disrupting an existing monopoly, and mystified by them not making more use of their monopoly. If someone found a working radio from two thousand years ago, surely they'd have reverse engineered it by now... but that only applies to simple, analog radio. If someone found a digital radio set from Tanya's first world, and had no concept of electronics, there might be nothing they could do but replace the batteries!

In that case, she has an obvious in: she can approach the existing owners of radio sets, whose dearest wish is probably to be able to make more of them and who have already thought of the most profitable uses and market approaches, and offer her knowledge. As an outworlder she'd be credible enough to merit a hearing, and she can also demonstrate receiving their transmissions with her orb. Since there are strong patent laws locally, she can apply for a patent that the the radio operators (who are based in this city) will want to buy. She doesn't even need to bargain for that much; even a one percent share in the profits of something as civilization-changing as radio would be more than enough for anything a private person could want.

She'll consult with Sinnah about this idea at the end of their session; she doesn't want to interrupt her obvious enthusiasm for studying magic. And then Tanya will have some follow-up questions for the information clerk.

While away she came up with a terribly clever or possibly cleverly terrible new detection spell! She wants to cast that in the isolation room first to make sure it hangs as she expects- The effects of miscasts are inconvenient, wouldn't want to subject Tanya to that- But after that, yes more magic studies! With lots of probing discussion on the theoreticals in between practical experimental attempts!

Her new detection spell detects something in Tanya and also in greater quantities in Sinnah, but she's not convinced it's mana, necessarily. It might be interworld-ness. Sinnah then gets distracted into what seems like a fluid simulation model of known Tirran magic flows on a giant map and wondering if the calculation orb's calculation techniques are applicable to fluid analysis.

One of the flight spell's core functions is to automatically adjust itself to maintain even flight at high velocities, and that involves a kind of fluid dynamics analysis, but it's not exposed as an explicit calculation where Tanya can see it because that's not how the orb works.

It may become clear from context that Sinnah is (for now) working on the Rift question rather than exploring Tanya's magic by trying to characterize latent Tirra-magic buildup, but she's not going to pause to explain it. And before long her attention wanders back the other way again. Papers with disorganized notes begin to accumulate. Eventually, the sun has set and Sinnah is not exactly slowing down.

Tanya wants to sync to the local timezone, but she does also want to sync to Sinnah's working hours. A few hours after sunset is normal, but as midnight approaches she'll ask when Sinnah intends to pause for the night.

"Oh, right, sleep is a thing. We can close up now. I don't want my main source on otherworldly magical knowledge to degrade due to poor maintenance, after all." Something in her tone is amused or even friendly. "What are your sleep comfort desiderata, anything easy to arrange at this hour should be thus arranged. I knock myself out with a spell when I sleep."

Sleep is a thing, but so is MORNING COFFEE!

"I usually sleep for seven and a half to eight hours. I won't have a problem falling asleep, soldiers learn to do that without any spells, I just need a bed. And I'll go out to get breakfast when I wake up, it shouldn't take long if I fly. ...I assume you don't have bathing facilities here either, are there public baths in the city? I forgot to check earlier. I'd pay for a hotel room, the only issue is whether I might not be safe there at night."

"I don't have a proper bath here. There are baths, both public and private. Nice hotels will have them. I have a cleaning spell if you want it instead. Wizardry, not witchcraft, which was an accomplishment. You have to identify unwanted substances by their physical properties... Safety again depends on your total risk tolerance, which seems low."

"...I just realized can't use a public bath because it'd be hard to keep my gun within reach so it isn't stolen, but I can pay for a private one, so that should be fine. It's true that I have a low risk tolerance, or rather, as a soldier I won't knowingly risk my life unless it's unavoidable and worth it. I don't know how likely it is someone will try to kidnap me, so I can't make informed tradeoffs, but I have nothing to gain from sleeping in an undefended location as long as I have an alternative. The question is whether I do in fact have a long-term alternative, and if not, whether it much matters what I do in the short term. I can't impose on you forever."

"If I make my useful knowledge public, and share my magic with you and let you share it with others if you want, maybe that will make me an uninteresting target and I'll be able to sleep easy. Or if I become rich enough, maybe I could afford magical protection or guards. ...I suppose I could fly out and camp in a different spot in the wilderness every night, and at least be hard to find for anyone who can't track me as I fly without me noticing, but then I'd have no-one to call on for help if anything happens, and any attack would go unnoticed."

"The risk profiles of a seemingly ordinary foreign individual and someone who is known to be a rich and famous Otherworlder are massively different. You are currently best modeled as facing the former. If you become the latter I would begin to suggest countermeasures such as securing a noble house's backing and security services, which would include a fortified and guarded residence and work area, bodyguards, intelligence gathering, monitoring and rescue services in case of an incident, and so on."

"I thought it would be unavoidably obvious that I am an offworlder. Are foreigners here sometimes as strange as I am? I am unaware of fairly basic facts about the world, and the questions I ask are sometimes indicative of this. I use a novel style of magic, to anyone eho can detect and anayse spells. I wear the uniform of a military unknown on this world. I registered as an offworlder, and I assume word will spread eventually even if it hasn't yet. I have no convenient cover story. Any one of these things could perhaps be explained away, but taken together I think they paint a clear picture. If not an offworlder, what do you think people take me for?"

"Offworlders often become rich and powerful. I don't know how long I can get away with assuming noone will be targeting me. I'll do it as long as I have to, but better safe than sorry."

"Speaking of noble houses. I noticed some radio traffic when we flew in. The information clerk didn't know anything about it, so I forgot about that, but if there are lost old technologies here with some relics being used but not understood - I could approach whoever is using it and offer them a theory of at least the basics, explain how to build something simple enough to make relatively quickly even if it's not good enough for field use. They'd understand the value, be invested in developing it so someone else doesn't to keep their advantage, and hopefully be able to pritect me if necessary. Do you think that's a good idea?"

"You're probably safe from widespread scrutiny as an otherworlder for tonight, even, or perhaps especially, because you have been spotted interacting with me. I'm known for weirdness. Maybe three, five more days. Not much longer than that if you don't make pains to blend in. Blonde hair and fair skin is a classically Western trait, so some are assuming you are from Noten... This topic is annoying. I don't really have an accurate idea of the risks for normal people anyway, I'm wearing over a hundred grams of diamonds." (It should be clear from discussions so far that local magical tradition for the most powerful and effective devices revolves around diamonds.) "Radio is interesting, and I think based on your personality partnering with some significant power to develop radio technology serves your interests. They would be motivated to educate and protect you while also extracting knowledge. I don't really have the correct perspective to evaluate them. I am considered an unpredictable rogue element."

But is she correctly perceived as an unpredictable rogue element Sinnah has been enormously helpful and entirely courteous and Tanya will treat her appropriately!!

"Then I'll sleep in a hotel for the next night or two, while I try to make inquiries about whoever is using radio here. Right now I only have suppositions." If she goes to sleep at midnight they can meet at - "nine o'clock tomorrow morning? And I'll want some time to make those inquiries, do you prefer to meet later or have a longer lunch window? I can buy lunch tomorrow morning and eat it here later, so it might be most efficient to meet later." Tanya doesn't want to lock in an expectation of working through the day and into the night with only a brief pause for lunch, Sinnah looks like she she might the sort of person who actually prefers that once she gets going, but for the next few days Tanya is on a clock. She will need to work shorter days with Sinnah once she makes contact with the radio-users anyway.

"I could also leave you my pistol to keep experimenting with, it should be safe for you to keep trying to cast through it while it's unloaded, but I don't know if your magic detection alone is enough to tell what you're doing wrong and to keep you from accidentally ingraining a wrong habit. Once you get it right once or twice it'll be likelier to be productive." The pistol in question is a standard-issue Luger P08. It has some very nice properties, like a rate of fire that saw the experimental fully-automatic model fail tests for being too rapid and a phenomenal resistance to mud. Left unloaded, though, pulling the trigger won't even cycle it. Tanya only has one spare magazine, and a pistol with a grand total of sixteen bullets on the enitre planet might as well be used for research.

"I don't think borrowing the pistol is necessary but I won't decline. Chemically powered weapons like that might be viable if we could improve steel machining techniques... Hmm, I'm only interested in that if the machine tools involve magical processes. Or enchanting them like yours. Meet again at nine o'clock, yes. If I bop you with the language again now it should probably last until then. Frustratingly inconsistent."

The Luger is known for requiring very exacting machining with no tolerance for knock-off parts, though not all firearms are like that. You certainly shouldn't start your industry by copying this pistol. Well, Tanya doesn't intend on starting a local gun industry anyway, that sounds like it would likely cause trouble for her later. She just needs to find a job and a life where she doesn't depend on her rifle to survive, or her orb in the long term.

Tanya didn't know the language spell running out too early was a failure mode! She should check how much it costs to buy uses of the other spell they used before, assuming it's more reliable.

For now she'll go to one of the hotels she found earlier. And then, assuming she survives the night, get breakfast and a packaged lunch and use the remaining time to start tracing where the radio signals are coming from inside the city, assuming they're still there. She can't measure signal strength very well, her receiver tops out at 'good enough' and she can't decode this signal anyway, but she can notice when buildings block the signal and try to build a map of where it could be coming from. And try to figure out if the timing corresponds to anything else she can see.