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"They aren't! I'd offer you a set but they're a little hard to get used to."

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"I probably wouldn't accept. Whatever lost technology you're using I'm too old for it." (He's barely middle age.) "What would you like to know about us?"

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"I'm curious about local culture and the stargate, and as long as I'm here I can," he makes the upper left quarter of a muffin and bites it, "I can distribute presents."

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He restrains the surprised look on his face at the sudden muffin piece. Mostly. "I, uh, don't think we're the most qualified place to tell you about the stargate. Most things about that time are rumor and hearsay now. If you find a larger town they may have a more substantial library. As to local culture, do you mean things like the floater festival?"

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"No. Well, maybe, but probably not, I mean things like how you call all winged people 'angels' and there is a mayor and stuff."

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"As far as I know 'angels' are part of an old religion where God lives high in the sky and sends winged people down when he needs something done on the surface. I'm the mayor of Oli, yes. We're small enough that a regular democratic election and town council still works reasonably well. There are plans to divide the place into three districts if the population crosses two thousand. We mostly work as a brewery town. Where are you from?"

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"Another world."

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That... Is not nearly as implausible as the mayor was expecting. "I see. Do you want to come into the great hall? It's probably more comfortable to talk there than standing here, if you want to learn all about us."

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"Sure, why not."

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So the mayor leads him through very beplanted wide streets lined with residences, over an elaborate and sturdy rope-and-wood bridge, to the central island that all the others are tied to. If he examines the points where the islands are tied together he'll see that there are thousands of ropes in total, but they seem to all converge on only a dozen or so mountings per island.

The great hall is pretty big, and seems to be made almost entirely of artful stained glass depicting the local critters, people building things, airships of the local design, and something that might be the stargate framed with black speckled with occasional silver dots. What's not glass is mostly shiny polished wood.

At one end is a slightly raised section. Perhaps a stage or something. The center of the hall is clear of furniture, for now at least.

"Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am mayor Harold Cavel of Oli. Would you like some beer?"
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"No thanks, I never developed a taste for it. Would you like an arbitrary conjured beverage of your choice?"

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He laughs for a bit. "I'm supposed to be feeding you. I'll just have to feed you information instead. I'll accept, how about some fruit juice?"

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Cam hands him a glass of orange juice.

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He starts drinking it. "Ah, this is a strong taste. What is it? And shall I fetch a couple of chairs?"

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"It is, creatively, called 'orange juice', and you can if you don't want a proliferation of extra chairs but I can just make those too."

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"Hm. Unless you make hundreds they won't be 'extra' chairs. You don't seem much bothered by making things. That's why you want information and not goods, I suppose."

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"I have no need for goods and plenty of need for information!" Cam makes a coupla chairs. They have metal bits, incidentally.

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Once he notices the metal he becomes intent and focused. "...Metal. At least two pounds of it. If you're not cheating for some reason, pulling these pre-assembled out of the nowhere, you're going to change all of Cloudbank. I've already said we don't know much about the stargate, shall I summarize what we do know about it? What else do you want to know?"

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"Well, I'm considering replacing it. Would that be welcome? Will I have some kind of war on my hands over it?"

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"Nobody can even get to it. You will definitely attract pirates, but there aren't any large standing armies here."

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"I can travel through space on my own, but if 'gating' is customary and no one has been by this planet since it broke, I assume that through conventional space you're very far away from all your neighbors."

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"That seems logical, but I wouldn't know. I'm not sure nobody's visited us since, though."

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"No? Who may or may not have visited?"

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"I just don't know how to make sure that nobody has visited. If such a thing happened it would be dismissed as baseless rumor."

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"Will I too be dismissed as baseless rumor?"

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