"No. Not talking about my family. Government, though, is fine. Monarchies are popular. Federations and various democracies less so. Occasionally you get some loon trying other systems of governance. I grew up in a nice, stable, peaceful, rich, homogenously-human and boring monarchy. I had to get out of town before I ended up farming and making flatulence cure potions all my life. So I scrounged up what I could and turned myself into a merchant. I gather you're from an empire - which has slightly different connotations than a kingdom, no?"

"Har conquered the continent and instituted an imperial government that other states have to answer to. It's better this way, otherwise there would be war. I've never even heard of a homogenously-human country. There are only thousands of us in the world, less than a city's worth. What's it like? You give away information more than we do, what else is different with humans?"

"War is an atrocity. Not only all the killing but it makes entire squares fall into the void and everyone loses. Naval war not quite so much but... Thank the stars, war is rare. The last war I've heard of was a hundred and seventy years ago. I almost want to barf thinking about someone going around conquering things. And there are a lot more humans than a few thousands. I think Kava, who issues Kavased, has a population of about 800 million people and more than 80% are human."

"We haven't had a war since the early days of the Empire, more than four hundred years ago. It was bloody but then it was over and that was good for everyone. If wars where you're from destroy whole squares you might like a worldwide empire. The other thing we like about ours is enforcement of laws against murder and trespassing so free people don't fight even one on one. What laws does Kava have?"

"Oh, ones against murder and theft and trespassing and the like. Those are pretty standard. Pollution laws - you can't go dumping trash everywhere or spewing nasty things into the air too much. Other economic standards like labeling the contents of food products and laws about how to pay workers. Those are the ones that stood out to me, though. Also, even attempting to reverse-engineer or counterfeit Kavased is a capital crime. They've somehow kept the lid on the secret for more than a thousand years, so Kavased is a nice and stable currency. There are extradition treaties - countries will capture and deliver people who committed crimes in other countries to stand trial in some cases. And a worldwide empire I would imagine would be very difficult given the sheer size of the world."

"Your world might have more land or slower transportation. You can fly from Mar Geru to anywhere in the empire in a day, it's not hard for the imperial government to communicate with the state governments. Oh, and it sounds like Kava also handles things we handle at the next level down. We're in Ehima right now and it has truth in advertising laws, and south of here is Anavel Sani, which also has laws about that, but not exactly the same laws and there aren't any laws about truth in advertising that affect the entire Empire. We know exactly how rings are made but it's not possible to counterfeit them so there aren't any laws against trying. What kind of laws about how to pay workers?"

"Long-range fast courier ships can cruise at sixty to eighty tiles an hour for days at a time. But a journey from the eastern tip of Sana Gale - still considered a frontier sort of place - to the westernmost established and developed continent, Helioc, is almost a hundred thousand tiles. It takes two and a half months to cross at best. Fates are always making more new land, you see."

"That would be harder to rule all of, yes. It sounds like you're expanding onto new land and forming new societies, new human-dominated societies, fairly regularly. Is there a way to find out what you've learned about new societies or about ruling majority-human societies? Does anyone sell books about it?"

"Probably. You could ask Bar later, she can do books. And merfolk are expanding too, it's just that they live in water so human-mer integration is not as easy as counting to five. Fair Folk too, but Fair Folk are weird and most of their kinds reproduce very slowly I think."

Books from other universes! Books from universes that might have more technology! Or different history!

"You mentioned laws about paying workers. What kind? Is it bad if people pay their employees too much or something?"

"The books are exciting, yes, I'm not leaving without some. Ah, no, there's a minimum wage with various exceptions under particular circumstances that people sometimes abuse and rules about how promptly you must pay workers and paperwork for tracking taxes and what forms of payment are acceptable and a legal mechanism for handling disputes and so on."

"Huh. Does that end in no one wanting free labor and everyone just using slaves to avoid the hassle?"

"...Slavery is illegal in many places, and generally slaves are not productive compared to minimum wage workers that don't resent their lot in life and aren't either weak and half-starved enough to fall in line or highly motivated to undermine you. It happens, but not on an industrial scale."

"What about children and criminals? Do you just execute people who are too dangerous to have free? If people don't own their children, who's responsible for their behavior?"

"You people make slaves of children? Parents de facto control their children, but don't literally own them and use the control to nurture-"

Deep breath.

"Well. Kids are generally not punished except by their parents for anything but extremely serious crimes. Deliberately starting fires or trying to kill people or things. Their parents want them to grow up to be moral, productive, and responsible citizens, generally. Process and results may vary. Criminals get fines and public shaming, go to prison for some time and hopefully rehabilitate, or get executed for increasing seriousness of crimes."

"What's the difference between that and slavery? Are the parents not allowed to have the children earn their keep? And I think a couple of those words must not have Ilan or Hari translations at all, can you tell me what 'moral' means?"

"...Strangers are strange indeed. Um. With criminals the state is doing it, not a single person, a slaveowner. And kids earning keep that depends, but usually it's limited, at least to safe jobs or something."

He clears his throat. "Morals are a standard of behavior that people feel other people should adhere to or aspire to. Kindness, honesty, prudence, diligence, temperance, chastity, humility, trust, that sort of thing. Which morals are important and which are most important to people varies a lot but the concept of 'morals' is very embedded. 'Why morals' is a big philosophy topic I could spend hours on and not make any sense. Some people argue that if more or less everyone is 'moral' then society is more pleasant to exist in... I think I need to hear more about your society now. Like, what a typical day is like? I'll return the favor and describe my typical day if you like."

"I wake up in the early morning before dawn but not everyone does that. I stretch since sitting down for hours isn't comfortable. I go to work where I collaborate with my employer on an attempt to make people immortal. I have a break from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, like a lot of people, when I can go to the market and get some nuts and sometimes fruit or, oh, I hear Seihra coming back."

The cat comes back in the window, telekinetically levitating the metals ahead of him. Once Valanda has the metal inside the bar and has given up his necklace of rings, he shuts the door so time isn't passing in Har for anyone to decide to try to enter or leave the building. There's not everything they could have wanted, looks like no one happened to have any iridium, but there's enough silver and titanium it'll be hard to carry it all, and some platinum and gold, too. Without the cat's telekinesis it sits there on the floor in an awkwardly huge pile.

"This should more than cover all that," he says, gesturing at the Tileworld goods.

"Mass immortality is a worthy project. Only one way to get it that I know of, and it's damn hard. This should cover everything quite well, yes. Will I be having some tools made indestructible or should I just take my shinies and leave?"

"I'll make everything on your necklace indestructible for enough Kavased to buy two books from Bar."

"Well, her prices depend, but I'll give you twenty. Should be plenty."

He fiddles with a pair of hexagonal crystals until one of them says '0020.00' and the other says '0863.65' and gives Valanda the 20 crystal. And hands over his necklace.

Valanda takes a while to stare in silence at each crystal on it individually. It takes maybe three quarters of a minute. "They'll hold their shape and they're unscratchable." He hands the necklace back. "Want a hug before you go?"

"...I am not a very huggy sort of person."

This is not the face of someone absolutely crushed by that refusal, right? It totally isn't, look at him smiling just the same as he was before, doesn't miss a beat.

"If you ever end up in Har for some reason, ask after Valanda the human defense mage. I'll probably be a state governor in not too long and if you're ever stranded in an unfamiliar universe and need someone who knows you..."

"Always good to have contacts. But I don't intend to get stranded. Nils the merchant can get you whatever you need if you end up on Tileworld in somehow. I hope your waterspouts and toothbrushes sell well."

One of the crystals is telekinesis. He buys a few books from bar quickly and is out the door.