"Hey. How've you been?" Kiss.

"Good! We've been bashing our head against the question of how to help preindustrial human societies, yet again. Oh, the Elves came up with - I don't know if it'll be useful but it's stunningly pretty -" he pulls him outside -

"...that is sure an Elfy summoning circle. I can't read it."

It is the prettiest summoning circle ever, up on a shining pedestal with a waterfall flowing all around it and done in tengwar so stylized they are unrecognizable. "Yeah, it's too tiny for human eyes. Reusable, you complete it by redirecting the water, see?"

"Yeah, there's some like that in Revelation too but it's more popular to use light projections."

"It solves the illiterate summoners problem, no one has a hope of reproducing it. Doesn't solve the payment problem. Honestly it seems like the only reason the world isn't ruled by daeva is that none of them are that ambitious."

"If someone tried to reproduce this they could wind up with a bad but valid circle."

"I don't think so. The 'I summon an angel' bit is just that little frilly ridge there. I don't have a good feel for how many people would try, having been instructed not to..."

"People try to DIY all kinds of stuff."

"I am looking forward to the rollout to temple-guild world, I think it might give us a better sense of what to expect."

"I wonder if they keep their magic. It's not genetic so they can't do my wizard trick."

"If they do, does that have any worrying implications?"

"Yeah. Gold and white ones stop having usage limitations if they're indestructible. Gold ones could fork."

"Does their method of time travel - erase entire universes -"

"Unclear."

"I kind of want to just abolish the magic fountains but I take it everyone would hate this and we probably shouldn't just ignore them on that."

"They seem like - traps that have self-sustaining subcultures built around them."

"Exactly. And given the age you have to get dunked at, we can't even keep them around on a voluntary basis.... could sabotage them quietly, I guess, if we wanted to..."

"None of the magic seems indispensable?"

"I'm not sure any of them net improve peoples' lives!"

"Sure, but would it if we had a way to cheat it."

"Daeva whitemages, sure, if we found something with mental invulnerability then maybe they could bluemage, but you don't even get to choose which one someone you dunk becomes..."

Nod.

"...If we can't have daeva mages that has implications for the current crop."

"They might become daeva but not stay mages, like wizards."

"Yes. We won't know till some who have summoned die."