"'League' and 'mile' are also related units of distance, with the former being reckoned as a multiple of the latter by some definitions."

"I think Linyabel and her various alts are more thoroughly in league with each other," volunteers Ivan. "The Mileses have been playing board games and insulting each other while the wosscalleds over there exchange fantastic magical prizes."

"Yes, but the pun doesn't work. If anything we're 'Bells'."

"You mean to tell me this unprecedented gathering of extradimensional Kevarsins hasn't been gearing up to do something monumental and terrifying? Crash the sun, are we sure you're really versions of my brothers?"

"We can do something monumental and terrifying anytime we like. Might as well take the time to relax," says Miles.

"There was that thing with Draconic," says Aurin. "That was a little monumental and terrifying."

"See?" says Elarron. "Don't tell me Ashras isn't in league with himself."

"I can always count on you for slightly insulting recognition of my achievements," Ashras says fondly.

"So what's your world like?" Bella asks the tailed people.

"...How are we supposed to answer that?"

"It seems like they don't have Aluvai in theirs," says Elarron.

"My world has only one intelligent species, of which I am a modified example, living on many different planets. We have no magic of any kind but do have advanced technology -" She picks up her pen, does her signature stroke of light through the air. "Like that. Bella's world has the same species on the planet ours evolved on, much too early to have colonized other planets or developed such technology, but it also has fuzzy magical aliens who distribute powers to teenage girls to allow them to fight horrifying despair monsters. Mial and Aurin are from a world with dragons and elves and more in addition to humans, and many kinds of magic to the point where I'm not sure it's meaningful to even comment on their technology level. Stalas's world has a handful of intelligent species and his lives underground and routinely fights horrifying ichorous monsters which are probably not metaphysically related to despair. Your turn."

"...Hang on," Inlaith says slowly. "Why don't your worlds have Aluvai?"

"They're hardly going to know that, are they?" says Ashras. "Um, Aluvai and Ceirene are the same species, we're all humans, it's just some of us live on the inside of the planet and some live... on... the outside... oh, I see what you mean, Inlaith."

"So the reason why the extradimensional Kevarsins are a bunch of shortears is because they come from planets without interiors?"

Ashras makes a facial expression as of someone who wishes his brother hadn't used that word but isn't going to tell him off in front of all these people.

"Planets of the sort I am familiar with are solid - or liquid under a lot of pressure and heat - all the way through. ...The answer is probably 'no', but will anything about this apparently weighty ethnic tension be improved if I show you a picture of another alt of ours who had pointy ears?"

"Almost certainly not," sighs Ashras. "Okay. I guess we need to clarify a few things. First, our planet is a hollow shell shaped sort of like a thick, round-edged coin, with two flat sides and a broad round rim. There are chasms here and there that pierce the shell, and around the rim the chasms are so frequent that there's almost more air than earth. Since the sun orbits outside the shell, the outer surface gets a lot of sunlight; it's a good place to grow food, and the wild animals mostly aren't bothersome there. The inner surface, and the floating jungle in the middle, get less light and have more bothersome animals, where by 'bothersome' I mean 'tending to eat anyone who strays too far from civilization'. As you can probably imagine, the Ceirene and Aluvai have historically not been all that fond of each other. I'd rather not recount all the stereotypes going in both directions, but many an unsubtle political cartoon has involved a Ceirene and an Aluvai standing at opposite ends of a chasm, looking down at each other."

"Then the Enemy showed up and we all discovered we had bigger problems," says Inlaith.

"Yeah, I guess those are our monsters," says Ashras. "They come from somewhere far away from the planet, they want to kill everyone for unclear reasons, and we had to ally with the Ceirene to have a hope of fighting them off."

"What a bizarre sort of planet. What does the jungle live on, if there's so little light?"

"It gets the most sunlight in the whole interior, when the sun passes the edges."

"It's not that bizarre," says Mial. "A little overelaborate, maybe."

"It's bizarre in the sense that physics doesn't work like that."

"Physics doesn't work like 'ten mile thick square floating in infinite air', either, but tell that to Elcenia," says Ivan.