"Yeah... Depending on how much they like it, they might offer to pay you, or other favors, but nobody's going to sneak up to you with a hammer if I have anything to do with it."

"Thanks, I appreciate that."

"We're not so desperate in this war to lose a bit of humanity for some extra-shiny lanterns and mirrors."

He smiles.

"They also want to know what other artifacts you or your family have, with an eye toward buying or leasing them."

"I don't have any with me... we have a few area-effect healing artifacts, you could see about leasing those... a cup that's always full of water, a hunting bow with perfect accuracy except that it refuses to hit humans..."

"...Would it refuse to hit Neuroi, is the question. There's an ace called Thunderbolt, and the name doesn't come from a lightning ability but how she can fire super-powered arrows."

"Well, I'm sure my family will let you test that if you pay them a reasonable amount."

"There'll be problems figuring out a currency exchange, and the Unusual Resources Division's budget is not infinite, but yeah."

"It's in a good cause; they won't try to drain your budget."

"They'll want the healing artifacts too of course. And when I tell them this I imagine they'll want to put you in front of their lie-detector then requisition a teleporter to try and establish contact."

"While you're trading for artifacts you can try the royal collection too, it's got more and better things, but I don't know it as well."

"They definitely will. What kinds of stuff do we have that you don't? To get an idea what to show off."

"We don't have a lot of your recent technology. Radios, telephones, all that. And no Witches."

"The tech is all really new and mostly expensive, and we're using most of it for the war effort. Depending on if we can get through at all, and how hard it is, I bet some of it is definitely on the menu. In less peaceful news, the general staff is planning a counterattack in two days. A huge flight of Witches and thirty thousand ground troops pushing east. So if they can't get you home by then I'll be gone from here. Unless they make me stay, I tend to be point-of-contact for new things. Not sure yet."

"I bet you could make a deal with the king of Haela where you bring some people over to learn how to make all your technology and he lets you walk off with some artifacts. And - good to know about the counterattack."

"Engineers are available. We have a shortage of them compared to what we want ourselves, though, people who are good at it are only so common."

"You can work it out with Talovir."

"Yeah. I'd tried to copy that artifact, but it's got an immense amount of power behind it, I can't match that. It's more efficient to use other magic. Say, I never finished teaching you to read."

"I would love to continue learning to read!"

Knight practically trips over herself to offer a Steelwing maintenance manual as practice material.

Gren has an old adventure novel, a couple of maps, and various bits of paperwork on offer.

Tiro is interested in Steelwing maintenance manuals and old adventure novels. He isn't quite up to having both things read to him at once, but he can switch back and forth.

Actually, better not to irritate Knight. Gren will leave them to it at least until they run out of manual.

Sure. Knowledge! Yay!

Meanwhile:

Very close to the place where Tiro originally arrived in this world, someone else shows up.

He is more or less human in appearance, with several... quirks. For one thing, he's eight feet tall, with exaggeratedly broad shoulders and slim hips, and a shining waterfall of ankle-length silver hair flowing down over his black velvet cape. His face and body are flawlessly symmetrical, his skin bloodlessly white, his eyes solid black from lid to lid. He looks around slowly, his motionless face fixed in a mild puzzled frown. Under the cape, he is wearing what looks like plate armour made of gleaming white porcelain.