Valanda nods back. "A ring if you'll tell me why you're blocking the street?"

"The context and value of 'a ring' is completely unknown to me. This is Milliways, it steals doors sometimes. It'll let you back out again, but you don't want to leave immediately. You meet all sorts of interesting folk here."

The guy idly fiddles with a chain of little metal pendants and crystals as he speaks.

Maybe the metal pendants and crystals are currency, instead of rings. Valanda's wearing a necklace of coins, so why shouldn't strangers from wherever they're from? He unties his necklace to give the guy a ring, since he did say he would, only to see that the enchantment on every single coin he's wearing has been broken. Some kind of ward, maybe, but a kind unknown in the Hari Empire. It makes it impossible to tell which coins are worth how many rings. No matter, he had the smaller ones more easily accessible, he remembers.

"Rings are currency. For one of those crystals I'll tell you how much one ring is worth. If you can teach me how you did the wards on this place and tell me why you're speaking Ilan and give me a map showing your home continent including latitude, I'll give you half of what I have on this necklace."

"Are you always so transactional in casual conversation?" Nils is one to talk, though, as mercantile as he is... "I really think you need more context to make informed trades in Milliways and I don't begrudge giving you that for free."

Blink blink. Do these people act like Caralendri among themselves or something? No matter, they'll probably like it better if he seems more comfortable with doing things their way. So he gives the impression that this is a pleasant surprise and then appears to relax.

"It's how people are at home, but we can just... talk normally, if you like." As if everything being transactional isn't what normal is. "I don't know what questions are considered rude where you come from but we can agree to forgive each other any failures of etiquette, I hope. What sort of context do I need?"

"Milliways pulls people from different universes. I have almost certainly never heard of your world and vice versa. We seem to have a pretty big cultural gulf too. That's alright, Milliways is like that. It's in interdimensional bar with a magical door that likes to borrow people who are liable to be interesting and have them meet each other, as far as I can tell. My world is - well, I call it 'Tileworld' because land and ocean comes in little squares on an infinite flat plane. Seems like most other places are not set up like that. Honestly I'm probably a better choice for being transactional about information than an average human. I'm a merchant and ship captain. Most people don't casually offer money for information in ordinary conversations, but I can keep up. It'll be interesting."

He takes a sip of some drink. "Hmm, time is probably paused in your world while the door is closed, the bar is sentient and very magic and female and communicates via napkin and the first drink is free... The bar rules are no nudity and no violence in the main bar area. There is a Security person who is supposedly guaranteed to be able to take anyone present in a fight... The money I am used to using is 'Kavased' and one Kavased is about what you'd pay for a big meal at a sit-down restaurant... These particular crystals are tools, not currency containers... And that's about all the context I feel like giving you for free."

Different universes with independent magic development histories... maybe different fundamental physics, given the tiles and the idea that a person being magic needs to be stated and someone being "very" magic as opposed to... slightly? The time pausing's a definitely, not a probably, if time were passing in Har the coins would show it. Good to know they're not broken.

Valanda stomps hard on every instinct he has telling him to haggle hard. Altruism. Generosity. He can act like he's ever heard of those. "Four rings would buy a pound of apples. This is one, since I said I'd pay for telling me what happened to the street." He offers a coin with a hole in the middle from his necklace. "I'm from the Empire of Har but I don't have enough context to know what's most unusual about my universe. We have eight species of people, I don't see most of them here so I take it none of the people you know are likely to be... big cats and hummingbirds, I'm not sure if the local translation would cover the meanings of their proper names. I'd be interested in learning any magical or technological innovations you have that we don't. I can ward you against extreme temperatures or make something you own indestructible or permanently stick things together."

He grabs the coin out of the air.

...He tries his best (which is quite good) not to look sly as he deliberately decides not to share certain information about Bar.

"We have many kinds of people, but most kinds are very rare compared to humans and merfolk. We can do those things with magic, except perhaps indestructibility, at varying degrees of difficulty and expense. I've found that I cannot create new magic items in Milliways, though the ones I already have continue to work. I have crystals for temperature, ones you can activate as a defence against physical attack, telekinesis, a burst of flame, communication with other similar crystals. Boots of limited flight. Amulets that help with balance, that monitor things on my ship, that protect from disease and help sew up injuries... Amulets are powerful and persistent but expensive. Wands for various effects - crystals and the boots recharge slowly after use, amulets never stop working, but wands will run out of charge and become permanently useless. Accordingly they are cheap. My ship is very magical, but she's not for sale and also not here. Indestructibility for my most useful items would be valuable."

"What kind of mage do you have to be to make balance amulets? I'll ward however many things you want warded for that many pairs of flight boots."

"We don't really have kinds of magic-item-maker. It's mostly about being studious and diligent and access to education. Anyone can make wands, but high-level stuff takes craftsmanship. I've got five pairs of flight boots rattling around in the hold somewhere, plus the pair I'm wearing. Oh, golems! Golems are hard to explain. They're magic items that... Have instructions baked into them and can follow the instructions. I have a few golems. Clocks, sorting golems and calculating golems and stock-assistant golems and automatic driver and pilot golems that work okay but you still need a person for complicated maneuvering."

Oh, it's technology, then. Or maybe everyone in his universe is the same kind of mage, no use getting too excited, he might still not be able to do it all. But he might be able to fly and light things on fire and he can definitely buy a bunch of golems to resell at a ridiculous markup back home.

"Do you have farming golems?"

"Those exist but agricultural equipment is not my specialty. I mean, I suppose if you attached a bunch of plows to one of my floating platforms you could get something passable as a replacement for several oxen."

Floating platforms are a much less dramatic and interesting sort of item to be buying and selling but they could be very cheap in the other universe.

"How much for a floating platform of... what sizes are available? How much for a clock? What sort of clock?"

"My clock is a clock. It has a light that displays the current time, the current time can be adjusted if it somehow falls out of sync. There are time-screwy effects in some places in my world that'd do that. You can set an alarm for a particular time and it will make loud noises until a button is pressed at that time. It's synced to precisely twenty-four hours and never loses time unless other magic messes with time more generally. It's about the size of my beer glass," sip, "And about the weight of it empty. I'd want twenty five Kavased for a clock. They're not trivial."

It's a hefty markup, but not a ridiculous one.

"The platforms depend on a lot of factors, principally size, speed, maximum force, and control features. We should probably figure out a precise rings-to-Kavased exchange rate. I'm wondering if there's anything that's particularly easy for your system and difficult for mine?"

Valanda would suggest they use produce if he were being fair. Apples or berries or some kind of nut. It sounds like enchanted items are more common in the other universe. What he hasn't heard is a mention of sunmagery. They may not be able to make elements or they may not do it very commonly. What's a good intrinsically useful naturally rare element? "Let's try getting a quantity of platinum and pricing it in Kavased and rings."

"Platinum... Hmm. There are some interesting magical uses for platinum, but it's not commonly used, really. You can't just treat it like silver with more oomph, I'd have to do lots of studying to use platinum myself. I could probably find a buyer, I guess... Fifty Kavased per kilogram."

This is a blatant lowball from Nils' perspective but they still don't know enough about each others' worlds to reliably guess things like that and he has a very good poker face.

Oh, that's very much more expensive. There's no way that much platinum would be worth fifty times a sit-down meal at a restaurant in the Empire. An easy-to-make specialty material without much in the way of everyday use? Either he's right about them not having sun magic or food is extremely expensive. Valanda doesn't even lowball. "That might be seven or eight rings, I think. Maybe ten if I'm underestimating. We could unfreeze my world and see if anyone in my apartment building uses platinum and wants to appraise it. Or go with whatever makes the math easiest, eight's better than seven or nine for that, it has a factor in common with fifty."

"...Ahh, I see. Delicious, nutritious arbitrage. You can't go wandering around in your world, alas, if the door to Milliways closes there's no telling when it'll come back."

"What a shame. How about gold? I might be able to get gold without letting the door close. Or silver, or... are there any elements you could really use more of?"

"Platinum and gold and silver work reasonably well. Iridium. Tungsten. Titanium? I am sure I do not know all of the elements."

"I can't get to a smith without going to the place that's supposed to be on this side of the door. Titanium's a maybe, there's definitely some in the building but it's in the building itself and I'm not demolishing my apartment quite that casually. Someone might be using it for bracelets but then they'd be enchanted and much more expensive. It's worth asking, at least, someone might have some titanium cookware or something. It seems like our universes don't take the same things for granted at all, want to try listing everyday conveniences just in case there are more useful surprises?"

"...It's hard to think in those terms. I take things I take for granted for granted, you see. My magic toothbrush cleans teeth? I can get clean water whenever I want from the waterspout. I have clothes-washing and clothes-drying golems. I have a toolbox that reorganizes itself no matter what I do with the tools. I have... A subscription to the library through my communication crystal so I can order a book and walk into a branch of the library in the next city I stop at and pick it up and then return it at any other library... I have... Pregnancy-prevention potions? My ship's autopilot."

"It's a waterspout that magically cleans water, or do you mean something else? How does your toothbrush work and can you magically clean things that aren't teeth? How many pregnancy prevention potions do you have that you could sell and do they only work on humans?"

"Waterspout makes water. Toothbrush just magically vibrates in the right way to be good at scrubbing. The bristles wear out eventually but you can replace that bit separately. Potions- They only work on humans. Males and females both though they last a bit longer on men. I have a crate of two thousand that I was going to sell in Hafnir. They last about two years each. There's no counter-potion, you have to wait out the time if you change your mind. It is not advisable to drink only a partial dose."

There are some caralendri and some humans and for all Valanda knows maybe some other species that would really like handheld vibrating things. "Do the toothbrushes work without the part with the bristles, can you put something less bristly on that end? What does the waterspout make water from?"