"What things were invented recently?"

"Hm... Lithium-ion batteries? Fiber optic cables? Bioplastic and biofuel became a big thing because there was nearly a spirit war over hydraulic fracturing?"

Bella looks up and compares dates.

The fiber optics are pretty late, but the other two are spot on. Decent biofuel might even be earlier.

"Maybe it's not as much of a delaying factor as I thought. You didn't have nuclear weapons in World War II but at least you have nuclear power for energy..."

"Nuclear weapons? Who in Christ's name... Augh."

"United States. Dropped two on Japan, that's it for nukes used in warfare."

Sigh. "I mean maybe it would have been cleaner than the invasion of Honshu was. But having things sitting around that can obliterate, and contaminate, whole regions when they go off would give me chills."

"Are you a nature-spirit-derived-spirit-bearer because you're fixated on environmentalism or is there an effect in the opposite direction or is it a coincidence?"

"First thing. I thought I told you my origin story. The Panama Canal project was... It was both uplifting and destroying my homeland. I don't think my concern for the environment is a product of where I got my magic."

"I could imagine the origin story leading to, I dunno, anti-colonialism opinions or patriotism or an interest in geopolitics or a hatred of anagrams, it didn't seem obvious that it had to be environmentalism generally construed."

"Nope. Colonialism was kiiind of on its way out already, it was the environment that had me all up in arms."

"You know what I bet you don't have, or have solved, is the honeybee thing."

"You're right that we don't have it, never heard of a honeybee thing, what's the honeybee thing?"

"Honeybees started having mysterious problems? Bar can I have something on mysterious honeybee problems -" She can. Here is a thing.

"...Hm, my intuition is on the pesticide overuse. But I'm not from your world. I hope they figure it out."

"Oh, now that I've thought of it I won't leave till I've got something to bring home that sorts it out."

"Don't forget about malaria, dengue fever, leprosy, smallpox, and so on. They become big problems anywhere that falls out of favor with spirits."

"A high but not unserious estimate suggests that malaria has been responsible for literally half of all human deaths." Pause. "Smallpox we eradicated though."

"Spirits won't eradicate malaria for us, but they did... Something to it, to make it not very deadly anymore. Before my time. And, of course, little record but stories of it."

"Leprosy's pretty uncommon these days. I don't know about dengue. But yeah, I will be coming home with lots of stuff. Magic could handle it but I don't know that I want to hold out for a solution that lets me scale that up to disease-eradication levels."

"Maybe we should talk to more people than each other? Since exploring other worlds' potential offerings is the idea here."

"I mean, I will probably be here for years. Don't let me monopolize you if you want to talk to other folks, I was just starting with Bar."

"Mm. Yeah, I probably will sooner or later. When I start itching to fight someone. You're interesting and Bar's interesting for now though."

"Itching to fight people is a problem you have?"