"We would need to more about the old Madezan gods. Our religion doesn't object on principle."

"The cosmology's pretty large, and who's who is sometimes a matter of debate. I'm not sure I'm entirely qualified to answer questions of theology, but they're generally accepted as the ones powering various rituals, and, when not called upon, are non-interventionist. Calling on them in proved rituals is considered varying levels of safe; they've never been known to react poorly to the fire-rituals."

"Is this the sort of thing that we could decide later, after talking with a theologian?"

"Sure, it's fairly early in the celestial year - the seventeenth day of the third month; the months are twenty days long, and there are eighteen of them, plus the five intercalary days at the end."

Sofia writes this down.

"Do you have any other questions?"

"None specific for now, no."

"You can return to this office at any time if something comes up; we're here to help, after all." And if no questions are forthcoming, official documents and a copy of the law can be provided. She also solicits numbers and preferred living arrangements of crew members, and finds them appropriate housing mostly together.

They will provide everything they can provide, but they know the crew members well enough that there is very few gaps to their knowledge.

She also explains the grid layout - it's very sensible, it's rather clear that this was a carefully planned city - and how to actually navigate to the housing, how to get to the minor weekly market (easily, there's a courtyard that the buildings will be around) and how to get to the major daily market (generally one at the center of every large neighborhood). Currency can be explained, the exact value of the stipend, what's a fair price for bread in their area...

Notesnotesnotes. Sofia is quite daft with using her metallic-not-a-quill.

What the apartment will probably actually look like and what the common appliances are (magical cold boxes are a thing that exists, but they won't have one because they're an expensive thing, as are a lot of other magical conveniences). Interior doors aren't a thing since wood's expensive, instead the apartment comes with basic curtains to separate rooms. Furniture is Madezan, which means a lot of rugs and pillows for sitting on rather than like freestanding wooden furniture like some places have. Interior plumbing exists, but is communal - each floor has a shared water spigot and bathroom. If you need emergency medical care, go to one of the temples which are located here and here for that neighborhood, but there are also doctors for non-urgent needs.

Well, the curtains are less than ideal for soundproofing reasons, but that's by far the nicest resettlement they have heard of. Rugs and pillows are far more adaptable to their multiple forms than any wooden furniture usually is.

Madeza prides itself in being very nice, especially since the Great Speaker Asheli took over! It's gotten a lot nicer in recent years, many of these are pilot programs.

They are all very nice pilot programs.

Is anyone willing to talk to the interesting new arrivals?

Once they get to the apartment, sure. Their direct neighbors aren't very chatty, most people are going about their business. The courtyards seem to be the places to hang out if you're feeling friendly; there's cushions scattered on the tiles and low benches along the walls. Each building has its own small, shaded courtyard where people gather and talk quietly, and the apartments are arranged around much larger courtyards, which seem to act more as thoroughfares, though there's also a large group of teenagers hanging out around a statue in the middle. The weekly market isn't in session today, but there's still people in the larger courtyard offering a few services. The neighborhoods themselves don't have roads, so much as a series of courtyards connected by small passages through the ground floor of the buildings.

The rooms are airy, and every single one has windows opening onto one of the two courtyards. The bedrooms mostly overlook the smaller, more private courtyard, with a long main room that seems to combine kitchen and living space opening to the main courtyard. They're all small and bare, with plain off-white cloth for curtains and pillows.

There's a variety of people hanging out in each courtyard - humans and human-like species seem pretty common, as do the small winged Incusai, various animal-like beings, and a few beings that look like animated stone, among many others. Many people here don't seem to share a language at all.

Nice. The small passages are not a problem for the flying beings unless landing is non-trivial.

Pool-shifters (The term they decided to use for themselves, albeit mostly because they couldn't agree on anything better) will introduce themselves. Sometimes multiple times because they are - as the name implies - capable of shifting between multiple forms. The winged one (Ventari) appears to be the default, but among them they have purple-skinned energy generating ones (Bronto), red skinned fire-breathing (Aester), stone-skinned ones (Petram) and a sprinkling of others.

The crew is mostly still optimistic about returning home. But they're looking for jobs. How is the market for that?

Adam, in particular, wants to talk with someone that might be interested in shiny new magical species.

One of the animal-like beings, that looks like a small ferrety-fox with overlarge ears, sandy brown fur, and bright silver eyes, is very interested in a shiny new magical species. She pops up from where she's curled up in a sun spot when she notices Adam, makes an inquisitive whir-like sound, and tilts her head. "You new?" she asks, perfectly understandable yet not seeming to actually speak. "I haven't seen people like you around, shapeshifters aren't too common."

Gosh, that's adorable. "Me and my crew are literally the first of our kind to get to this world."

"Cool! What are you? I'm a spirit, though I haven't met any other spirits like me yet here."

"My species doesn't have a name yet. We have the ability to change between different, specific shapes that we are born with or acquire in special places."

"Huh. Most spirits can shapeshift, I know, though I can't super much, just change my fur color. That sounds cool, though! What's your world like? Mine's boring, just a lot of desert, most of the people died long ago."

"Untreated water is acid to people. We have monsters on the surface, so most people leave in floating cities. But by default we don't have to worry about old age."

"Huh. Spirits don't really get old either, but I haven't heard about acid water. Floating cities are a neat solution, though, must've been hard to do."

"There are all kinds of horror stories from the early days when there was not enough space or treated water." Adam says seriously. "But nowadays, people have kids when they can afford a house and there are enough mages to supply city expansion."