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In a bar, there is a girl.
She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.
kithabel and milan in milliways
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ertia
ertia
"We can talk to her, I guess, but she won't know what you want to know in particular."
first-and-final
"I want to know whatever I'll be better off knowing as someone who's going to move from my world to yours and then live there. You might know all that information but it would be hard for us to compare notes thoroughly enough to figure out that you do have toast and healers and you don't have skirmish or fae and so on for all potentially relevant phenomena - I can stand here going 'dwarves? a-mail? universities? paladins? lawyers? cats? trees?' all day, and you can do the same to cover the things you have that I might never have heard of, but it would be kind of a haphazard way to go about it. If the bar knows the relevant things already, she'll have a much easier time getting me up to speed."
first-and-final
Milan looks at the piece of demonstration toast in his hand, eats it, and wanders over to the bar.
"Hello," he says.
"Hello," he says.
Hello. Can I interest you in a beverage? says a napkin.
Says a second napkin, Also, you might want to know that my hearing is fairly good.
Says a second napkin, Also, you might want to know that my hearing is fairly good.
first-and-final
"Well, that would've been good to know much earlier," he says of the second napkin. "But then I suppose you must already know what I've come to ask. Can you help me?"
I would have mentioned it but as you can see I communicate by napkin and you were all the way over there.
Kithabel's world has only humans for sapient species, although magic allows significant cosmetic variation in those inclined. It lacks aethernet, any non-momentum-based sources of magic, does have most of the plants and animals you're accustomed to and then some, contains recognizable if differing universities - the world permits science, if not quite unvarnished by human expectation, and magic is not considered an academic field at all.
Kithabel's world has only humans for sapient species, although magic allows significant cosmetic variation in those inclined. It lacks aethernet, any non-momentum-based sources of magic, does have most of the plants and animals you're accustomed to and then some, contains recognizable if differing universities - the world permits science, if not quite unvarnished by human expectation, and magic is not considered an academic field at all.
first-and-final
"Curious. No equivalent of thaumatology? I guess with only one source of magic, and a fairly simple and predictable one at that, there wouldn't be much call for intensive study..."
And those who practice it are disinclined to hold still for rigorous repeated experimentation.
The planet has four moons and a set of lovely rings, Bar continues. The population density is rather high but not, mostly, urbanized, as most of the reasons to centralize don't apply. Kithabel's home is the Sunlit Satrapy, but except for governing parties forwarding information about tasks to do to sorcerers they are unlikely to intrude upon your life very much.
first-and-final
"Thank you," he says. "As for the drink, do you offer recommendations? It seems to me that you're also in a very good position to give people things they'd never think to ask for on their own."
I do and am.
Here is a mug of something hot and almost buttery. It steams.
It goes very well with his toast.
It goes very well with his toast.
Why thank you.
first-and-final
"Surrounded by eavesdroppers, apparently," he says, glancing over at the couch. "I have no idea what this is but it's delicious."
It is called a "butter mug" or a "hot morning" depending on locality.
first-and-final
"The bar says it's called a hot morning. And I am still out of what I'd consider conversational range with anyone who has no significant elven ancestry."
first-and-final
"Apparently you don't have nonhuman people in your world; well, we do in mine, and elves in particular have, among other attributes, very sharp hearing and the ability to project their voices to specific people across a distance."