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?"

"Ah, the waterspout... Makes water. Water appears when you turn it on. I suppose you could put something else on toothbrushes if you made it with a little notch-screw-thing like the bristle holders have at one end?"

"It's possible I'd be interested in some of both of those. In the Empire, we have fewer enchanted items, but there are things that are indestructible or persistently warm or cold. I'm sure I could buy an icebox for the right price but getting someone in the building to part with one they're using right now might not be profitable. We can enchant items to show what's happening in different places and we can also enchant them to show what was happening at some point in the past. I'm not sure if you have anything like what some people do where they pretend to be different people and pretend to get mad at each other in costumes but some people like that at home and they buy things that show the acting over and over again. There are also ones that show people pointing to objects and naming them in different languages. I'm not sure what else we have that you might like." That's not true at all, but if they don't have command magic then they might not be able to have slavery and so Valanda will just not tell them about any enchanted items they could use to change that. And if this man follows him home, having one last trick up his sleeve can't hurt.

"We have iceboxes. We have audio and visual recordings on crystals. At this point I am mostly interested in precious metals which I am getting the feeling are relatively easy to get for you, and making a few of my items indestructible."

"What items? How many, how large, do you have any unusual definitions of 'indestructible' like a candle that'll burn but can't be cut in half? How much of which metals exactly? How many waterspouts and toothbrushes do you have available to sell me? Will any other people in Milliways want to sell things for Kavased after this, do you think? Is the place I was trying to get to by going through this door... eaten, or can I send someone through a window while I hold the door?"

"All of the items are my crystals and amulets on this chain right here." He grabs where it rests around his neck for a moment. "Not very large. No unusual definitions. Crystals can destroy themselves for an overcharged version of their usual effect, but I'll just avoid doing that." He throws some numbers out for the metals - very low for him, still very high for Valenda. "If you open the door and send someone through a window they won't be able to open the door from behind but can do everything else just fine. I don't think it's terribly likely other people in Milliways will want Kavased, but it won't be a problem. Tell you why it won't be a problem for five rings." The last sentence is said with a fair bit of sarcasm.

"Information's too much of a lemon market for that. I'll give you one for it."

"I was somewhat being sarcastic. One works." He waits until it is handed over to say, "Bar can do currency exchanges for pretty much every currency. Via incomprehensible magic of some kind."

"Oh! That's useful." Then, to Bar: "Excuse me, Bar, how much to find out how many Kavased are worth one ring?"

A napkin appears.

In neat cursive writing it says, I do not generally charge patrons for information regarding pricing or exchange rates. Would you like a drink? First one is free.

Oh, okay, Valanda knows why people promote their products that way. "I might like a free drink if it's a kind that'll be good for me. I don't drink fresh blood, for example, but it looks like you've served humans before. And I'd like to know the prices of tungsten, platinum, titanium, gold, silver, apples and pecans in Kavased."

I would not serve anything disgusting to someone's taste unless it was specifically requested. I do not sell dangerous items such as poisons. I would only sell fresh blood, which is never sourced from any actual person, to vampires or persons with similar dietary requirements. The napkin bearing that message manages to look slightly offended.

Here is a drink. It's pale yellow and cold. Here is a list of prices that seem a lot like prices from his home converted into another currency, rather than the 50 Kavased per kilo for platinum Nick offered.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Valanda is very unamused except for how that's actually kind of funny. "I'd also like a list of the prices I'd have to pay to buy these things in Tileworld."

He sniffs the drink cautiously. It's probably safe, if Bar is used to serving humans. He takes a small sip.

The drink is pretty good! Sweet, and full of some kind of unfamiliar fruit flavor.

The prices for Tileworld reveal that all the listed metals are very expensive there. And food is a bit cheaper.

I do not tend to facilitate arbitrage; It is discouraged by the landlords.

"Ah. What would you, hypothetically, do to someone who met another patron and traded with them? Would they be banned from coming back? Would you let them leave with their goods or not?" And why can't people in other universes just act normal and say what they want and what they're willing to do to get it?

I won't interfere with any trading you decide to do with other patrons. I will simply decline to assist with arbitrage beyond a certain point. I do not control the actions of the door, but it almost never prevents people from leaving.

"Bar's like that. I don't see the point in stressing too much about it - we're still both going to make a profit."

Valanda would be so much happier if that "almost" hadn't been in there but that's right, they'll both profit.

"Looks like I should be considering buying nuts from you. Nuts, waterspouts, toothbrushes... I'll just go open the door and send someone for the metals you want."

"My door opens onto my ship which is sailing right now. I don't have a huge collection of waterspouts and toothbrushes. Toothbrushes. Sure, why not. It's not like I carry an entire shopping mall around with me. But I have some." He gets up and starts ambling towards the door.

Once the Tileworld goods are rounded up and inside the bar, Valanda opens the door, shouts, pays a snake to go find someone with more appendages and not ask questions, pays a cat to jump out the window...

...and then stands there holding the door and waiting. "It'll be a while. Does this look very different from your world?" Visible from the door is a white-walled apartment lobby with stairs and a closed door. The silver door-handles are actual silver. The only light is the sun coming in from the window.

"It looks like the lobby of an apartment building. The architecture is unfamiliar. I am led to believe I'd need to see landscapes to note any big differences. Though snakes and cats being people is a bit new."

"You don't have squares inside buildings? And, wait, how many humans are there in your world and what other species of people are there?"

"Squares are about two kilometers per side. The terrain changes suddenly, sharply, at the borders. Lots, and lots."

"Two kilometers as the bird flies or does the grid get out of sync wherever there are mountains? Do any towns straddle the borders between squares?"

"Hm, here, let me draw you something..."

Squares each have four triangles that meet in the middle. The terrain comes in types, and the type changes sharply, but the elevation changes a bit more gradually - even for hills and mountains and the like. 

"Like so. We tend to build within the lines, not right through them, but it's not unheard of."

There are so many more questions he could ask about how that works but none of them seem likely to lead to anything useful.

"That's strange. There's not enough of a view out the window for you to see what our world is like if you step out into my building, you'd have to go up on the roof or out of town and it could be a bad idea for you to go wandering. What's your home town like, what species of people, what sort of government?"

"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.

Valanda buys whatever book Bar recommends about morality and settles down to read for a while.

Bar can make some recommendations. He could also just borrow them. They won't go on his tab unless he destroys them or they leave the bar area.

Some time later, a woman in very... Adventurer-looking clothes (cape and hood, lots of leather belts and pads) comes down the stairs in the back, stretching. "Yo! Good morning, Bar. How about the best breakfast you can give me for twenty rupees!"

A pretty hearty breakfast appears. This other guy(?) is reading so Link just tucks in instead of saying hi.

"Excuse me, do tell me if it's rude of me to interrupt your meal, what sort of magic does your world have? I can make things indestructible."

"Uhh... Lots? That sounds super handy! Unbreakable shield would be glorious."

Valanda guesses a possible exchange rate based on the twenty-rupee meal but food might be much more or less expensive for this new person.

"Does the shield need to be able to deform or spring or change shape or anything unusual once it's indestructible? If not, you can have a glorious unbreakable shield for twenty rupees." Or ten, that's the price he'll be happy with. He'll take eight but only because he needs money to spend in Milliways so badly, less than that and taking the job is worse for him than not.

"Heck, that's cheap. It really should maintain all its properties, like, I need to be able to bend the leather part where your hand goes to actually use it? And the metal is a little bit springy and I would have to get used to it if it stopped? Can you do weapons too? Maybe don't do my Slate I'm not totally sure how it works but I need it to keep working right and it's already pretty tough."

"If it ending up totally rigid would be a problem and you want a leather strap done too then" (twenty, he's good at this, he could make flexible things indestructible in his sleep) "thirty. If your slate is the kind of slate I'm familiar with, a slab of dark rock you write on, that should work fine but chalk can't do its job if it can't be damaged. I've done knives before but never for stabbing live people, if you want it done even with that caveat then I'm pretty sure I can do blades. I could probably do a sling and rocks, too. Anything else and you get things enchanted at your own risk, no promises that it'll still work. I can also do clothing if you'll definitely never want to let out the hem or anything. I can even do people but that's much more expensive for a much less complete job."

"The Slate is Sheikah tech. Don't wanna risk breaking it. But if it's that cheap to indestructify things you must have a lot of unbreakable stuff lying around. Sounds nice." Nom, nom.

"Yeah, I have an indestructible quilt and shirt and shoes and a flame-resistant notebook. Building codes in Ehima, where I live, require that wood buildings be enchanted to resist fire, too. Not every defense mage knows how, some specialize differently, but up to a twelfth of the population could learn. Tell me about your Sheikah tech and the magic you have at home?"

"Sheikah tech is weird. And old and powerful. Almost nobody makes stuff like it anymore. And I kind of need the Slate to..." In Milliways, she has learned, if she says she's saving the world people tend to react weirdly. "Well, I need it. I don't know the details of the magic but I've got a bunch of magic weapons. I've got Sheikah mechanical parts which are, uh, mostly indestructible but I guess you don't need those... Magic arrows, elixirs and food that do buncha different things for you if you eat or drink them. Magic clothes. Oh, I do know elixirs, I can make you some if I have the right stuff but it takes Hyrulean ingredients probably. Oh, also monsters. Monsters are a thing. And, like Hylia and Ganon and the Sages?"

She takes her hood off and reveals a pair of long, pointed ears. Still otherwise looks human.

It's so weird meeting someone who doesn't personally do magic, like meeting someone who doesn't personally talk. He supposes it's like how agerah evolved to hunt even though a lot of them just buy food now. Never mind that, though, there are a lot of other things more important than that.

"Are you human?" He'd been assuming she was. He'd been hoping she was. Now she looks a little like a caralendar.

"I'm a Hylian. You with your round ears look like a Gerudo to me. Humans happen around here a lot and we Hylians seem mostly the same from what I figure. Spent some time here yesterday... Hey. You seem nervous. Milliways is safe, don't worry 'bout that."

Blink blink. "I feel safe, I've heard that there are rules against violence here, but thank you." Valanda still doesn't make eye contact. "So, are Hylians or Gerudo similar enough to humans that the same sorts of governments work for you? Does your country have morality?"

"Do we have morality?? I mean. Yes? Do you not have a code of morals?" The lack of eye-contact is a bit weird but okay.

"I don't, but it seems like my world is unusual that way. Of course I'd be willing to follow yours if you ever invite me to visit your home. I've been reading about morality but I don't really understand it yet, I just heard of it for the first time today. What's your morality like?"

"...Well that's a question. I think you kind of just have to be nice and make the best of things? Hmm. I swore a Knight's Oath once. 'To defend the innocent and help the helpless, to bring the wicked to justice and peace to the virtuous. To serve Hyrule to the utmost of my ability and skill, no matter what danger or threat appears. To stay calm and push on even in the face of disaster, and to be humble and noble in triumph'. Kind of failed on the 'triumph' part, unfortunately. Hopefully I can fix it."

"'Innocent' meaning those who haven't violated the law? Or haven't violated your Knight's Oath? What does 'virtuous' mean? And 'wicked' and 'noble' and... and by 'justice' do you mean punishment sufficient to deter further crime or do you mean something else?"

"Innocence isn't... It's not, like, breaking laws. It's seeing death and pain and evil and getting used to it and dealing with it. Sort of. Not being innocent isn't bad but the innocent ought to be protected. Virtuous is... Being a good person? I don't know. Wicked means evil. Justice is punishment. Noble is, like, having good ideals and wanting the best flourishing of everyone else and being calm and collected and thoughtful and prudent and forgiving. And deserving respect and, uh, it's kind of a heavy concept. I don't know. You really ought to talk to the Princess for lessons on statecraft or whatever."

Valanda buys a sheet of blank paper and pencil from Bar and starts taking notes: innocent = not understanding death and pain = moral to protect; virtuous = good?; wanting best flourishing of everyone else, calm, thoughtful, prudent, forgiving = noble = moral to do in triumph.

"Is the princess close enough to the door that I could hire her for a lesson while you're here? And can you tell me what 'evil' is? And what's good about being forgiving?"

(Bar wants 0.02 Kavased to cover both paper and pencil.)

"...Ah. No. Princess is. Not available. I don't mind explaining but it's kind of a heavy situation do you want the explanation."

"Of course. Maybe I can help." This seems like a situation that could probably be helped by unbreakable bones, from the impression Valanda's gotten of Hyrule and the kinds of dangers it has. Unless she's already dead or he's totally wrong that this adventurer's planning to rescue her.

"Okay so. We have divinity in our world. Some don't apparently. The goddess Hylia has a dark counterpart, the dark god Ganon. Hylia is great and powerful and loving and kind, but not all-powerful, so she has to rely on us Hylians to help her help us. Ganon is evil. Hatred and malice incarnate. He wants nothing more to destroy, kill, and hurt. We have a history of this. It's a thing. Ganon does terrible things, a hero helped by Hylia gathers power and eventaully defeats Ganon, and all is well again. To make a long story short... A hundred years ago... I was the hero. And Ganon killed me."

Deep breath. "Got a lot of friends, too. A lot of innocents. But the princess... They say she has the bloodline of the goddess. Something awoke in her. She- She bound Ganon and herself up in some sort of suspended, half-here bubble where time runs funny. They're locked into a magical stalemate. I was taken to the Shrine of Resurrection and placed there in the hope that Sheikah technology would revive me. It did, eventually. It took a hundred years. And Princess Zelda is still in her stalemate with Ganon. She needs me to get strong again, to find the Hero's Sword, and come seal Ganon away once again. Then we can have peace."

Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. Valanda puts on his poker face and doesn't let himself panic.

"I'll enchant your shield for free. Is there any chance you're still growing? Do you need to be able to bleed for any reason? Are you likely to face extreme temperatures? Can Ganon use command magic? Are you ever likely to benefit from being able to be compelled?"

"Uh, thanks. I'm grown. Except, like, retaining muscle? I want to still do that? And other normal body things like maybe be able to have kids someday? I'm, uh, pretty tough already thanks to Hylia's blessings, the Heart Containers. I have magic clothes for extreme temperatures, covers everything up to literally being on fire. I dunno what command magic is but not being compelled sounds good."

"I can make you unburnable but smoke could still choke you so that's not an improvement as long as you're sure you'll never be caught without your clothes. How tough is pretty tough? I can make your bones resist shattering even if you have a two-ton weight dropped on you from the top of a five-story building. I'll ward you against magical command now and... your shield is close to your door somewhere? I'm not traveling a mile in a foreign universe for you."

"Shield's in the Slate!"

She pulls it off her belt, a little stone rectangle about the size of two hands. Taps it and the front lights up. Tap tap tap. Here's a shield that appears in a small burst of blue light. It's shiny metal with an attractive, fancy design on the front.

"This thing's a beauty. Found it in an old fortress. But against Guardians it wouldn't hold for long. Until now. I have a bunch of swords and spears and an axe or two and some bows if you're offering to help with those too. Results not guaranteed, right? Oh, and I am gonna pay you. Not like I don't have enough rupees."

Well, he's not going to argue with helping her and getting paid!

"Thirty each for shields and weapons, results not guaranteed for anything but the shield, how does the Slate do that? Do you mind if I copy down the design from the shield?" He holds out a hand for it. Takes about a minute to get the metal indestructible without letting it lose its spring. Much faster for the leather.

"I don't know how the Slate does that. It does all sorts of things, I think it was very impressive even for Sheikahs. Maybe my friend Purah would, but she's nowhere near the door. Ah, on the shield... Leave out the parts in red. Replace it with something else, please. That's the Hylian royal family's crest. Only Knights' gear should bear that if I can help it, I think."

Link gets out a series of weapons after this. Including a giant sword that is slightly - more than slightly - on fire. "Flameblade. Doesn't do more than be warm unless you swing it. I have an ice spear and a thunderblade too."

Valanda's not enough of an artist to make changes to the design and have it turn out nice and if he did the copy wouldn't be any good for showing people and asking if they know anyone from the world it came from. He doesn't bother copying the other parts.

"What is a flameblade supposed to do? What spells are on it already? And the same questions for the ice and thunder weapons."

"It sets things on fire! Ice blade freezes things and thunderblade shocks them. Gorons are particularly good with fire-enchanted stuff but I don't know about ice and lightning."

"Does it ever need to change shape in a way a knife being used for its sharp edge wouldn't? Does it ever need to be made of a different material temporarily?"

"I don't think so? Yeah, no. Sheikah weapons are, like, made of magic light but these aren't Sheikah. They'll be fine. Thanks."

Valanda does all the weapons she cares to give him. "I can guarantee infinite tensile and and compressive strength but with the other enchantments on them and the casters unavailable to consult I didn't want to touch temperature resistance. Don't stick them in a forge, but nothing will ever nick them or break them. They'll stay exactly this sharp forever, if that was a mistake I can break the wards and let you sharpen them. Fifteen rupees for a command ward. Two for me to hold my door for a while and recommend other mages who can do different things. You want imperial rings for that if Bar can get them, my best guess is that one rupee is worth two and a half rings."

"Uh, imperial rings? Oh, a different currency." Shrug. "I'm not really sure I need other mages? Depends on what they do, which I don't know? The legendary sword is the last piece of the puzzle. I mean, I really should do extensive preparations... But you never know what will come up, you know? Oh, here's your money. My name's Link, by the way."

Lots of rupees. 225 of them. Link has finished her breakfast while she was working on the weapons.

"I'm Valanda, human defense mage. What makes the legendary sword capable of defeating Ganon? It's possible someone could make one or replace it. If Ganon is within a reasonable distance of your door, I'll take fifty rupees to turn him into a statue, if he's not warded against that and it would be safe to stand somewhere with a line of sight to him for a minute or so."

"No. I'd bet ten thousand Ganon's immune to statueing. He's not even really corporeal, exactly. And you'd never last that long. And he's miles away, anyway. The Master Sword is a thing of great power created by Goddess Hylia and passed down through generations. It shines with light that burns Ganon and his creations. It might be possible to beat Ganon without it, but I'm betting having it makes things a whole lot easier."

"I take it the Ganon-burning property of the light isn't something that could be replicated with a bright enough torch. Where is the Master Sword? What's between you and it?"

"I have to find the sacred forest. I don't think you can help with geography of my world. I'll manage it sooner or later, I expect. Have a few ideas. Some of the oldest Hylians told me things about what happened right after the Calamity. Even if I lost some of my memory... Well, most of it... It's coming back. Kinda."

"I can't but there are mages in my world who might be able to. You'd want a knowledge mage specializing in facts about locations. Or someone who knows how to scry specific objects from descriptions without having ever seen them. I wouldn't know who to recommend but I know who to get a recommendation from, it's not a rare skill at all, lots of people use magic to find lost things."

"...Eh. I'll pass. I know Milliways is safe-ish. I don't know about your world. Might be a bit hypocritical given all the monsters in mine, but... Yeah. I can only handle so much crazy new stuff at once. Also you haven't really looked at me once, it's like you're scared of me. Or of everything."

Valanda stares at her straight-on. He's a little unclear on the concept of eye contact that doesn't look murderous. "Like this? Where I'm from it's rude to look at people."

"-Ah. Not really like that. I gueeeeess it's an acquired skill. Which you never acquired. We Hylians are, uh, very in tune to behavior that's a little off, and we get, uh creeped out by it. Or so Princess Zelda told me. Humans are probably the same."

"Thanks," he says, looking away. "Why is looking at people the preferred way of doing things among Hylians?"

"I have no idea. Well. You can tell a lot about how someone's feeling by looking at their eyes if they're used to doing that I think? Why isn't it with you?"

"It's similar to trespassing or scrying the inside of someone's home. People want to forget they're not alone. A lot of politeness is about letting people live together without feeling crowded or threatened. Why eyes in particular? If you're going to watch, why not their stance or what they're doing with their hands if they have hands?"

Shrug. "I'm glad when I'm not alone. Ask Princess Zelda? If we see each other again after I fix everything. I seem to be saying that a lot today. Eye contact is considered polite. Uh, sometimes. I am not qualified to teach manners, I'm a weirdo."

"Oh? How impolite are you at home?"

"Like? I don't know people? I'm very brash and straightforward a lot of the time? I ask weird questions because of my lost memory sometimes? I'm a knight so my outlook on danger is a lot more casual than for most folks?"

Valanda writes down: brash, straightforward, weird questions rude in Hyrule; looking at people's eyes polite in Hyrule but only certain ways.

"Good to know, thanks, I meant how much it costs."

"Costs? I haven't had anyone refuse to trade over rudeness yet. Except the monster guy, but he's even weirder than me."

"And no one charges extra or wants to be paid a certain amount for accommodating you? Then how do you know it's you being rude and not monster guy being rude?"

"Oh. You kind of get indirect costs for being rude? People won't help you, or they'll be rude back. It's, like, social esteem is kind of a sort of currency? Not one you can quantify, but... If you're a nice and respectable person you can ask for favors and people will do them without getting paid? And they gain some esteem from doing the thing you asked. And you lose it if you're rude. Or lose it with some people but gain it with others if you're rude to people they don't like, sometimes. It's more complicated than that but does that at least make sense?"

"Not very much sense and I'm glad the Empire isn't like that. If you're polite, you become the sort of person who it's inherently beneficial somehow to do favors for. If you're rude, you become someone who gets treated normally and has to pay for things. Is that a collective attempt to pay people back for making it more pleasant to be around them? And rewarding people who do favors for polite people is rewarding them for rewarding the people everyone wants to reward. Does doing favors for rude people make other people not do favors for you because you defected from the agreement to reward only polite people?"

"Not quite. If you're polite you get... Accepted? And if you're rude, you get treated like an outsider, someone not to trust... You do a good job of making it all sound very silly, you know. And I know it's silly. And complicated. But it is how it is." Shrug. "As for me? Being nice to people just feels good. Well, usually, not if I hate them or something."

Valanda writes: in Hyrule politeness = trusted, people do more favors for people who do more favors for polite people.

"What kinds of things count as being nice to people? Why is being polite a signal of trustworthiness, can't untrustworthy people be polite?"

"Polite people are more likely to be trustworthy, maybe? And if you're not trustworthy but are polite, people figure out that you're not trustworthy after a betrayal or two anyway. I think. There's so many layers to social rules. I think they're easier if you live with them for a while. I'll not judge you for breaking ones I instinctively expect you to know about but you don't. Like the eyes thing. I think politeness is also kind of a collective agreement to be civil to each other and not make a big deal out of minor trespasses? And let people know that we know minor trespasses probably aren't deliberate and we wish them no specific harm. Just saying 'sorry' is powerful. And to subtly punish people who do minor trespasses by being rude, without having to really punish them. So things run smoothly and you can relax more and don't unexpectedly have to pay the shopkeeper eight rupees instead of six for eggs just because you accidentally tracked mud into his shop."

"And you wouldn't rather be told about the problem with mud and charged extra for your eggs that day than not hear about it and be caught by surprise some other time when someone unexpectedly refuses to do you a favor? How do you know which kinds of rudeness are worse? What if it's just very important to you to track mud into shops and you'd like to be able to budget for the cost of doing that instead of have it result in random unquantified harms at times when you're not tracking any mud anywhere? Does this also mean you can't pay people to treat you differently? What if someone says 'sorry' about something that was actually deliberate, how can you tell?"

"...Complicated. You usually know if you're being rude and if people are, like, at the breaking point of resentment over it? And explaining why you need to track mud might help, or offering to clean it or pay for cleaning, but that's not really... I don't know. It's complicated.. And, uh, it would be strange to pay someone to treat you differently. Except in a professional context I guess? It'd break friendships if you think they're only your friend because you pay them. Being sorry - tone, attitude, history. Sorry indicates 'I understand that you don't like that I will keep it in mind and try to avoid repeating it'. If you're flippant or insincere about being sorry it doesn't count much but if you're sincere and especially if you offer to pay or change your actions or make some other kind of recompense it counts a lot. But. Context changes a lot of the details."

"So you holistically assess how likely someone is to do it again and below a certain threshold they 'are sorry' and you don't need to punish them because a deterrent isn't necessary, that makes sense. So it would be unacceptable in your world for me to say, for example, when you're speaking a language that has different pronouns for men and women, talk about me as a man and I'll pay you a ring each month I don't hear you talk about me as a woman?"

"...Yes, involving money for things like that would be unusual. Something like that usually you would just ask 'please refer to me as a man' and some people would shrug and do that and some people would be confused and say you aren't. Standards of what's rude and what's not are different with different, like, sub-groups of society? I think it'd be very rude to refuse. But a lot of people would think it's not right to say 'I'm actually a man' if you don't have man parts and if you confront them about it they might say sorry and stop but probably won't and paying them to refer to you as a man anyway would probably be counterproductive. Gah. Explaining this stuff is hard but I'm getting better at it maybe! So... That kind of thing happens for you guys too? Weirdness and non-defaultness with gender I mean."

"I don't know how common it is with humans. There are caralendri who prefer not to turn into women, but I don't know of any who want to be called women before they are or who've changed and regretted it. Why would paying people be counterproductive?"

"It's not common and not always accepted, but it's a thing. Like gay people. Caralendri change? Well, if it works for them. Uh. I don't even know how to explain this one. It's... Bad incentives? People could loudly call you a woman just to annoy you in the hopes that you'll pay them to stop. Well, that's one of the problems with it, anyway..."

"Someone could ask me to pay them for it without ever talking about me at all. I'd offer to pay you if I expected to still know you a month from now or if I had a unit of currency worth enough less than a ring to pay for today. Gay people are a distinct category? In a different way than, say, people who eat pears are different from people who only like apples?"

"Our society defines them that way, at any rate. There's some cultural baggage attached to the label. 'Bi' is the word for those who like both genders. Like, uh, me. Yeah, not all these social complexities are nice ones, ones I like."

"Are you having all the sex you want?" Valanda asks with all the smooth charm of someone from a country where sex is solicited with as much careful indirection as selling apples. "Since you're not wasting any time in your world if you do things while the door is closed."

"Ah. Right. We have tons of stupid and not-so-stupid norms around sex things too, by the way. I will do my best to ignore those. And, I'd have to think about it. It would be so strange to visit your world."

"What kinds of norms and why do you have stupid ones?"

"I don't make the norms! I just form opinions on them! You're supposed to be really indirect about it and not literally say 'how about we have sex?' and you're supposed to not want to have sex with people unless you love them, and not as a family but specifically romantic love, and you're supposed to only love one person this way and you're supposed to not talk about it."

"I didn't literally say that! I could just as easily have said exactly the same words if I'd been offering to rent you a vibrating toothbrush or a slave. I wasn't, unless you want a toothbrush, I do have some. Probably more convenient to sell you one than rent it. Anyway what does 'romantic love' mean?"

"...Toothbrush? And, wait, stop, I am kind of done explaining things that my head is screaming everyone should already know for now."

He wonders if she'd keep explaining for wait no people here don't like to be paid for information. "Sure, that's fine. Toothbrush! I bought a bunch from another universe earlier, they magically vibrate or so I hear. There's a part with bristles but it's removable and you can put something else in its place. Sound interesting?"

"What? No, hold on, you said slaves just now. Slavery's pretty damn evil. Ganon-ish. Goddess Hylia asks us to be kind and wants everyone to be happy. You keep slaves? Your society condones keeping slaves?"

"I don't have any, which is one reason I wasn't offering to rent you one. Slavery is one of the Hari Empire's most important social institutions and I don't fully understand how other societies can function without it but I can learn that from a book or another person later, I understand that you don't want to explain things."

"It's not... I don't... Bah. Slaves! Please do try to explain it you kind of owe me an explanation I just spent a while explaining at you."

"Of course! You can become someone's property one of two ways: by being convicted of a crime or by being born. It's important that convicted criminals and people who can't understand the law are someone's responsibility. Or dead, of course, you can kill your slaves, it's just usually about as smart as burying money in the woods. If someone hasn't been convicted of a crime and is able to understand and follow the law, you can free them but there's no requirement to. It can be slightly and temporarily economically advantageous to get rid of a slave in some states but you're usually better off selling them if that's the case. If there's no reason society benefits from having you enslaved, you're usually free if your master dies and it isn't your fault. A lot of people free their children, maybe half? Three quarters? I almost wasn't, but fortunately my mother decided not to listen to my father. Oh, uh, fathers don't own their children, mothers do. Is that what you wanted to know?"

"...That is appalling and I am sorely tempted to try something stupid and I need to walk away from this conversation for five minutes. Be back soon."

And she, perilously calmly, stands up, and heads out the door to Milliways' backyard.

"Bar, can you recommend a book containing an explanation of reasons people might find the existence of slavery frustrating and upsetting?" Valanda asks and doesn't go after Link.

I will try my best.

Bar provides books about why slavery is terrible.

Some of the reasons explained are: Slavery increases the total amount of suffering. Slave-owners consider their slaves as resources not people, this is immoral. Slaves do not earn anything for their work, this is unfair. Slavery violates declarations of human rights (international agreements on morals?). Slavery is enforced through violence. Slavery causes unnecessary deaths. Slavery causes racism and does damage to the social peace. Slavery permits abuse of children (who should be protected).

Valanda considers taking notes but eventually realizes there's a single key insight from which he can rederive everything later.

Everyone knows that laws exist to force people to cooperate in stag hunts and prisoner's dilemmas: situations where no one cooperating is much worse for everyone than everyone cooperating and one person unilaterally deciding to defect has the potential to ruin everything for everyone. Laws exist, specifically, to cause peace. They exist to prevent people from fighting each other, to prevent people from needing to defend themselves, to allow people to spend their time farming or inventing immortality.

Morals are like laws but for happiness rather than peace. Like Link said, wanting the best flourishing of everyone. If everyone wants that, they can get it. For everyone. Including themselves.

It seems difficult to legislate what people want and Valanda isn't clear on the enforcement mechanisms. "Thank you, Bar! Can you recommend any books that would explain why people in societies with morals don't just unilaterally decide not to act morally when they're not being watched?"

Link seems to be taking a long time but that's fine. Valanda is learning so much.

Bar provides some philosophy and sociology which might help. It's a complicated topic, though.

Link comes back, glances at Valanda with some kind of complex emotion in her eyes (not that he'll notice, not looking at them), and asks Bar for a book and doesn't initiate conversation.

Valanda asks Bar for the history Link's reading. Examples of people enforcing cooperation in making everyone happy will probably explain it better than abstract ideas. Talking to Link went badly last time he tried it, so he doesn't try it again.

Bar is happy to provide it.

It's about the history of the Rito being integrated into the Kingdom of Hyrule.

The Rito are a people sort of halfway between human and a bird! They had a lot of customs and traditions involving singing and hunting. They had a rite of passage that every male had to pass to be considered an adult. A dangerous flying obstacle course and other physical ordeals. All the females had to learn and perfect a concert and sing it in front of the whole tribe. These tests are supposed to exemplify the best virtues of the Rito.

The then-King of Hyrule didn't like that the Rito males sometimes died doing their challenge, nor how those who failed would be cast out and nobody was allowed to talk to them. He asked the Rito to make the challenge easier, or at least less lethal. The Rito refused for a while, even kicking out Hylian merchants and visitors in offense, but the next time a young man died in his rite of passage they relented.

It doesn't say what the king did. Maybe he threatened war? The Rito themselves sent merchants away, but whether they did it or the king did doesn't matter, the result is that not doing what the king said meant less trade. It's hard to figure out why the Rito relented right after the next time a young man died. Was it because they wanted to hold out long enough to have that happen one more time in defiance of the Hylians? The Rito are the immoral ones, right? Valanda's not sure how he's supposed to tell. The Hylians seem to have upset the Rito a lot and reduced the signaling value of the test, meaning Rito can't have as much confidence in each other's abilities anymore, but the Rito were killing people and shunning people.

But why didn't the Hylians leave them alone about it? Their king could have not insisted. Maybe then his subjects would rise up against him?

Justice is punishing immoral people, right? Link said that or something like it. That's clearly how it works, everyone figures out a set of morality-based laws and then enforces them just like any other laws, everyone agrees to pitch in because otherwise they will be punished, everyone punishes non-punishers so they have to all coordinate to stop punishing immorality all at once to stop it. It's stable once it gets started, same as any legal system, the two stable equilibria are everyone being moral and no one being moral. Obviously there's no chance of making the whole Empire stably moral and trying would undermine the stability of its existing institutions, so he definitely won't try to introduce morality in any existing states. But he's already planning to buy state-level sovereignty on some islands and maybe some unused parts of the mainland and when he does that he'll see if he can make a society that acts moral.

Looks like the Rito were in disagreement between whether to make it easier or not. When someone died enough people switched to viewpoints that the chief decided it should be that way. Once it was decided, they argued for days but all had to accept the chief's judgment eventually, none could convince him.

Rito are very good at flying and archery, while Hylians are good at magic and metalworking and melee combat. Rito Hunters and Hylian Knights working together were much better at keeping bandits and monsters off the roads than each of them alone.

The next problem came when a Hylian stole things from a Rito. The Rito wanted to punish them with clawing and pain and banishment, but Hylian justice said he should repay the damage with work.

The King visited again and made a deal with the Rito chief about how crimes are to be handled. The Rito resented what looked like Hylians slowly taking over their village. There was almost a war when a faction of Rito Hunters attacked Hyrule, but the chief apologized and punished the hunters.

Oh, maybe the Rito had a factual disagreement about how dangerous the test was and the death convinced some people it was more dangerous than necessary.

The disagreement about punishment sounds similar to problems with interstate commerce that unfortunately Valanda doesn't know enough about yet to understand. Everything else makes plenty of sense, though.

He wonders if any of this is any help at all for Link, it really doesn't seem like it's about any secret forests or secret swords, but he doesn't ask. He'll just keep reading.

"Hey, Valanda... Sorry I got all upset and stormed off. I'm calm now. I kind of freaked out about slavery but that's no reason to act like this to you. I don't like the idea at all but it's not your fault. So. Sorry."

"Not a problem. I don't suppose you could recommend a good book on the rules you have in Hyrule about how you treat your children?"

"Hmm. No, sorry. I think mostly parents teach their kids how they should treat their kids? Some places have schools where parents send their children and they learn things. It depends a lot. So, maybe I can help you think of ways to make slavery less bad or happen less often in your world. It'd be good if slaves can earn their freedom or something at least."

Oh no, she wants to change things, she's going to try to destabilize the Empire.

Nope, nope, moral arguments, moral arguments. "I'm afraid to touch what we have because it could be worse. Policy changes need government backing, but if it's the imperial government and it's unpopular enough, people might secede. I don't see a way to force parents like mine to send their children to school. We have tutors but they only had me tutored in magic because it was a marketable skill, they didn't pay for me to be taught reading or math. Hylian parents send their children to school because not doing that would be immoral and other Hylians will be angry about it, right? We don't have a society that would get angry about it."

"Sounds terrible. How does- How do you not end up with one guy owning everyone else? It sounds like the way things are set up that's the, like, stable end point. Ah, yeah, you send kids to school because that's what you're supposed to do. Some people have them help on the farm or whatever but they try to make people not do that. I think they handed out free meals for kids at some schools before the Calamity to try and get people to send their kids there with less grumbling?"

"You're responsible for your property, if your indestructible sewing needle goes through someone's skull that's assault, if your slave kills someone that's murder, some people don't want the bother. I'm not sure why, but something like eleven twelfths of agerah free their children within a month of their children's majority, just... for no real reason. And people die, too, and usually if there's no reason not to their slaves are freed then. There are sometimes state laws that try to give people incentives not to have large numbers, because it's always a headache when they die, that helps distribute things more evenly. There's a sense in which the imperial government owns us all, of course, but not in a way that makes most people less free. It hasn't ended in everyone belonging to one person so far, anyway. Free meals... I don't think free meals would work for us, even if the teachers didn't need to be paid for their work, some people just don't like giving their children any power if they can help it."

"Well, people love their kids. And there's no way for a slave to get free except a master dying or deciding to free them...?"

"I don't think love is an insurmountable problem, people can be paid to give up things they love, I think my mother may have loved me and I still managed to convince her to let me go, but it does add that extra hurdle for us to clear. And those are just the legal ways, I once helped someone else's slave get away but legally he was just lost property, not free."

"No they free them because they love them and want them to... Be happy... Hylia's grace, your world sounds so sad. I'm sorry but it does. Even if we have monsters..."

Because they're not all cooperating on the project of making everyone happy, right, of course that would lead to less happiness.

"So part of loving people is wanting them to be happy? I think agerah might have that with their children and caralendri with their families. I'm surprised Hylians do, you said you were a lot like humans and I don't know very many humans but from what I've seen humans want other people to suffer."

"Some Hylians hide it pretty well. We can be nasty, evil sods. Just think about the Yiga Clan. But I think most Hylians - on some deep level - want the people they love to be happy. I do. I want people to be happy."

Valanda double-checks the exact proportions of sadism and indifference among humans he knows. "I think there are some humans who want everyone to be happy. I wonder if there's some fraction of the population wanting that for its own sake that makes having morality easier than not having it. Obviously, if it's twelve twelfths, the whole society would be moral. ...If you were designing a law code with morality in mind, what would be the two or three most important laws for it to have? Besides making slavery illegal, you've made that part clear already."

Link rubs her forehead. "I'm not Princess Zelda. She's the one who got taught how to rule people and how to do laws without fu- messing everything up more! Tutors in statecraft! A whole library to read! I'm worried all my suggestions will be terrible and make things worse. But... Morality's squishy sometimes. Like, what if someone threatens you to open a locked door or they'll kill you, and you know they're going to kill people inside, but if you open it they'll spare you? If you're a soldier or a guard, obviously your job, your duty is to call for help and fight them, not open it. Risking violence is part of the job, what you're getting paid for, and people trust and expect that you make the, uh, personally expensive choice because of that job. If guards ran away a lot there'd be no point to having them."

"If you're a civilian... It's kind of natural to want to save yourself. They might unlock the door and let the killers through even if doing that lets them go do murder, to save yourself. They didn't do the killing - the bandit they let in did, and they can't be responsible for the bandits' actions. But is it right? Should we have expected them to sacrifice themselves to save others? Some people say yes, some say no, some say 'only in this particular situation'. And what if it wasn't a 'let the bandits in' thing, just a 'warn people you saw a bandit'? That's negligence, not, uh, facilitation. That changes how people feel about it. There's not always a clear right answer. Not always a total agreement. You kind of... Have to feel it? So encoding morality in law might not... Not end well. Like, law should be influenced by morality but not define it? I think Hylia's teachings... Give us some good general guidelines for morality though."

Valanda takes notes: Link not taught to rule; Princess Zelda's statecraft library; encoding morality in law might not end well, morality squishy, complicated, dependent on situation; Hylia's teachings good general guidelines.

"It seems like every question I ask you about morality ends in you telling me I should talk to someone who has access to a library full of books on statecraft. Bar probably has a library like that, I'll borrow more books later and in the meantime it sounds like I should stop trying to get answers from you. So. Anything else you want from a defense mage?"

"I mean, I can try. I don't mind trying. You're just... Coming at it from a really weird angle, being all grown up and not knowing morality. Maybe it'd help if you lived in Hyrule for a while, but that might not be a great idea."

"For one thing, how would I ever get back. It's odd to not know this and be all grown up? Would you have an easier time explaining if you pretended I was a child?"

"Oh, you might get back eventually. Or maybe not. Milliways gives you doors repeatedly, sometimes, apparently. But you can't tell on your first visit how much it likes you. Explain it like a little kid? Maybe! I more meant that you kind of have to live it, I think."

Valanda considers asking for stories from Link's childhood about Link coming to understand morality, but of course there's a problem with that plan.

"How often does Milliways like people and how often do you get doors if it does?"

"No clue. Some other folks I talked to think that most people who get it at all don't get it just once, though. You're trying, you know. I can tell. Or at least I think I can tell. You're trying to be moral but you don't really know how. Maybe you didn't even realize you were trying to be moral because you've never heard of it."

Oh, that's useful! Valanda has a good enough poker face not to look delighted.

"Am I? My plan for my life has always been to become a state governor and tax slaveholding heavily enough that people prefer to let their children go, is that moral?"

If it is, he can ask Link for help and Link might do it for morality instead of compensation.

"It's pretty moral. Especially given how it's... Normal, there. There are other moral things to do, and I'd guess morality really works best if everyone does it, if you convince people, so they feel it in their bones... There's no best morality, people have different priorities... But slavery is a big one, yes."

Valanda decides that in the future he should lead with this. He's from a world with slavery and he's trying to make it less common, that's better than leading with not happening to understand morality very well, it'll get moral people on his side faster.

"I don't know how to make people feel it in their bones. Until today I didn't know that caring if other people are hurt was any less idiosyncratic than wanting everyone to believe I'm a man. I never imagined an entire society of people who all care about it. I've never tried to convince anyone to care before and I don't know how and I'm not sure if every species can or how to deal with people who don't."

"Not everyone really cares, even with us. I'm not sure how to make them care either. 'Empathy' is what it's called when you think about what other people are feeling. Empathy's a good start..." Blink. If nobody in his world is nice... Must be lonely. "...Do you need a hug?"

"Yes, please."

Valanda gives very clingy hugs and is kind of bony.

Well, clearly he needed the hug. Link hugs back - not overly affectionate, but firm and strong. "Everyone needs a good hug once in a while. You said there's not many humans in your world, I guess you don't get them much."

"I really don't, last one was a caralendar three years ago." And not this nice and not really a good memory and maybe he should change the subject now. "Oh, hey, is fairness part of morality?"

"Years, huh? Yeah. It is." Link slowly starts to move to un-hug, but will stop if Valanda clings particularly much.

Valanda lets go with good grace. What a good hug. Maybe he'll get another one at some point.

"I could maybe work with that, lots of people care about fairness, a lot more than care about other people's, how did you put it, best flourishing?"

"Hah. That was me stealing the princess's phrasing. Yeah, fairness is important. You should only be punished for things you actually did. The law ought to be the same for nobles and commoners - and maybe slaves, if there are any." (Small sigh.) "It's bad if somebody else gets paid or gets credit for what someone did. You shouldn't treat someone different because of who they are. Ah, friends don't count for that, friends and family and such. More like... Shouldn't treat them differently because they're Gerudo and you think nobody can trust a Gerudo. That's unfair."

"Why is it unfair to treat people differently because of their species? If we didn't have different laws for, say, humans and essi, essi would spend sixteen extra years being treated as children and be dying of old age by the time anyone treated them as adults. Or else humans would be adults when they're too young to talk or walk. It seems like that would be bad for one species."

"Hmm. That's complicated. We don't have to treat them exactly the same - more like the laws and customs ought to be designed to not disadvantage any species too much? Laws about how to treat Rito who committed crimes and went to prison are different. They need more space, they don't need warmth as much. Laws about food and farming don't count for Gorons, they eat rocks. And Gorons have different mining laws."

"What's prison?" Valanda doesn't understand most of that but it's hard to turn "nothing makes sense" into a concrete question so he asks about a topic that's probably tangential instead.

"It's what the government does instead of execution or slavery for some crimes. You lock people up for a while as punishment, as deterrent, we try to make it so they learn their lesson and when released can go back to being good citizens. Not fun at all, expensive to the government, but fairer than being dead or a slave and more effective deterrent than fines. Plus there's the whole shame and renewal thing."

"We just keep increasing the amount of the fine for deterrence. Sometimes we use command magic to keep people from repeating their crimes. When we want criminals to learn a lesson, we tutor them, like if they keep trying to make other people leave public places for annoying them we help them understand how to find private housing where they don't have to be with people who annoy them. Or if they keep freeing slaves who don't know the law or are too brain-damaged to control themselves then we teach them how to kill people they're done with. Speaking of which, what does your society do about people like that? I'm guessing it's not killing them all, right? That would be immoral."

"Killing slaves is bad. As bad as killing free people. Maybe worse, they're pretty much helpless. Defenseless. I'm not the biggest fan of prison but I think it really is a much stronger deterrent than a ruinous fine. It's more visceral and immediate-feeling than money. A 500 rupee fine doesn't feel that much worse than a 200 rupee fine. But getting locked up in a dungeon? That feels scary and bad. Giving people lessons on what to do instead for stuff like that is a really great idea actually. As for damaged people, or for particularly brutal crimes... If they're unrepentant, repeat offenders, just can't learn or don't care? Execution is on the table. For brain-damaged people I think they try to find family to take care of them, or a situation that might work better for them if they can, though."

"Making family responsible would be very unpopular at home. Hylians like their children, right? You don't just have them and walk away? Not every species at home is like that and it would feel unfair to essi to be singled out and made to take care of someone just because they were related. It's hard enough to get them to spend a few months teaching their children the law and how to talk. I could fund some kind of state-run... something... for taking care of them but then I'd worry that whoever I hired would be the kind of person who would want to own helpless people and that seems worse than what we have now. This seems like a hard problem and I wouldn't be surprised if there are easier ways to make people happy that anyone who thinks about it for a while comes up with. Since no one in my world has thought about it for a while."

"It's a very hard problem. And lots of kings and queens of Hyrule have been slowly getting better at it for centuries, learning from their predecessors. You probably have to be slow about it. Fast sweeping changes to how the law works, uh, don't work. According to the princess."

"What I'm planning to do is buy up the highest level of sovereignty that's for sale, someplace where not many people are living now, and I'm planning to let people leave if they don't like my laws but I expect most of my people will be immigrants. I'm going to lure them with the promise that vacuum mages can use their power with only reasonable restrictions, because I have the ability to conjure matter now. I think that should be less of a problem than changing the laws in an existing state but I really wish your princess were here so I could ask her about... oh, you probably know what Hyrule's laws are, right?"

"Most of them. Lost my memory, remember? I keep remembering - facts, and how to do things, not so much specific experiences? Mostly stuff really close to losing to Ganon is what I lost. Vacuum mages? Oooh, do you know about balloons?"

"They make places empty. What are balloons?"

"They're like boats for air. You can float with them because the air in a balloon weighs less than the air outside a balloon. The Rito use them for target practice, but indestructible balloons filled with vacuum sound like they could be pretty useful. Somehow. Or fun, at least."

"What do you make them out of that's airtight but light enough?"

"I think they use some kind of leather coated in special resin. The bigger the balloon is, the heavier the material can be, 'cause there's more insides compared to its outsides."

Valanda notes what a balloon is.

"What do you use them for?"

"Target practice. Decorations and festivals. Other fun. Octoroks, a kind of monster, have balloons too. If you kill them and attach their balloons to something heavy it gets easier to move around."

Valanda writes that down. "So balloons are like very weak force mages. There's probably a market for that, thank you! Are there any books on your world's technology? Can you cross oceans?"

"There were ocean-going ships before the Calamity. Haven't seen any lately, though. I bet there are lots of books on technology. Purah had tons of books. Probably literally."

"So I'll find out if my world has another continent somewhere that I can take over. I'll have the ability to conjure matter and I'll have advanced technology from Hyrule and somehow that will have to be enough. I'm not sure it will be but I have to try this and I don't know of anything else I can get here that could help me keep people happy..." Valanda can look weak and uncertain when it's useful, which it might be now. Come on, nice person, offer things, that's moral, right?

"Careful the other continent doesn't have people on it already. I bet there's more places with technology Bar can tell you about. Conjure matter, what's that about?"

Well, maybe he overestimated how useful morals are for manipulating people or something.

"Thanks! Maybe if it has people Bar will have books by them and I can check that way. I bought some artifacts earlier that create water. Like I said before, destroying matter is illegal in every state but it's not an imperial law so I can just let people do that and compensate. I probably don't need as many as I have, if you want to buy one." He quotes her a price that's higher than he got it for but not by as much as it would be if she'd bothered haggling earlier. He wonders if haggling is just not done in Hyrule.

"Oh, those do sound useful, but I'm not usually hurting for water. Hyrule's nature is kind to us for the most part. Harsh but fair at worst, so I don't really need it. I think a lot of your world's problems might be because you don't have a kind goddess? Other people I met don't have Hylia and also don't have slavery, though... Maybe I can open the door and you can pray and she'll give you advice or a blessing."

"What's praying and how do you do it?"

"Praying is talking to Goddess Hylia. You talk, but in your head, wanting to talk to her. Being near a statue or symbol of her helps. She's a goddess and she's everywhere and very busy so she might not answer, and you should be deferential, but she's kind. The worst that will happen is nothing."

"She can read minds? Does she tell people what she learns that way? Does she enforce any requirements about the contents of people's thoughts?"

"I don't think she reads minds. Even if she could, she probably wouldn't. She hears what you pray at her. It's a matter of intent."

"Thanks. I would like to pray to her. Is there anything she's likely to want from me?"

"Be nice? Or rather, don't be evil. Hylia wants to help everyone be safe and happy! It's Ganon you have to be careful of."

And Valanda knows exactly what evil is and how to avoid being it, it's not like that's something he only just heard of today or anything.

"Is your door somewhere convenient for me to step into your world for a moment? Is it safe? Would you like anything, for holding the door for me?"

"It's cold where I am, but should be safe. Maybe you should borrow my Snowquill coat. Nobody else is around. And nah, it was my idea in the first place."

"I'm warded against cold, but thanks! Now?"

"Let's do it! Hebra mountains are so pretty, even if Hylia doesn't answer you'll get to see them, at least."

Link stands up, almost bouncing on her feet, and rushes over to the door and opens it on a view of some rather majestic mountains, a thick layer of snow over everything.

"It's so pretty here!"

He prays silently. Hey, Hylia, it's Valanda, human defense mage from another universe, trying to reduce slavery and help people and figure out right and wrong. Care to help?

And he waits for an answer.

Nothing for a solid thirty seconds.

After that...

He might be imagining it. If he's not, it's a very, very faint sort of answer. It seems to be asking 'why?'

He tells Hylia silently that he wants to make people happy. The other things are ways to achieve that goal, but that's an end, not a means.

He really hopes that's the right answer. If it turns out there's something she wants people to want to achieve by being moral, then maybe she won't decide to give him anything. If it turns out she can hear thoughts not directed at her, he hopes she doesn't mind that he's deciding what to say based on what seems most likely to make her want to help him. It's not like he's directly lying to her about anything.

Also, he suspects that was his imagination and feels kind of silly.

O visitor, says a voice in his head, You have suffered much and are conflicted. But you are good at heart. Alas, my strength must be reserved while Ganon yet threatens the world... I cannot grant you power.

Oh! Oh, that's alarming. Okay.

He thanks her for her answer.

He takes a last long look at Hyrule and walks back inside. "She says she's too busy with Ganon to help," he tells Link.

Sigh. "I was afraid that would be the answer. Ganon really is terrible... I probably shouldn't linger in here for too long, I'll go soft and won't be able to beat him when the time comes..."

"Another hug before you go?"

"Oh, I'm not leaving right now! I just shouldn't stay here for more than another day or two, that's all."

Hug! Smiling hug. "Not gonna leave you to be alone again quite yet, nah. Maybe you should get some of my elixirs. They do a bunch of useful stuff. A lot of them are kind of defense-magey but some aren't."

Hugs are so nice.

"What do the elixirs do and what do you want for them? And will you have enough to win your war even if you sell me some?"

"I can always make more. You won't be taking anything irreplaceable. Elixirs that defense mage doesn't already cover... Better at attacking, stamina restore, speed boost, stealth boost. Cost depends on the elixir? I'll give you a few of the weak ones for free, really really good ones that last for a whole day can sell for a hundred rupees or more."

"When you restore stamina, what does that do? If I run ten miles and can't go any farther and I take it, can I run another ten miles? What does a stealth boost elixir do?"

"Well, some stamina elixirs are better than others, but broadly yes. Stealth boost mostly makes you really really quiet when moving around, you don't crunch leaves or anything."

Link goes back over toward bar. "Oh hey you said something about toothbrushes earlier but I was kind of upset at the time?"

"They vibrate! They have bristles on one end but you can remove the bristle part and put something else there if you want. I'm planning to just sell the lot of them to someone who can make the right sort of attachment in my world but I can sell you one if you want. But how does a stealth elixir keep you from crunching leaves? Does it make you lighter? Does it let the leaves crunch but keep anyone from hearing the sound? Does it work against scrying or only in person?"

"But why is vibrating a sex thing it, uh, sounded like they were related to sex somehow?" Pause. She mutters under her breath, "Weird to be talking about this..."

"Oh, right. Stealth elixirs it's more like... It makes you able to move in such a way that you don't crunch leaves. You still make some noise, just less. I can give you one and let you walk around observing the effects if you want."

"Some people like vibrating things against their genitals," he says with a shrug. He's not even sure what kind she has, it's possible she hasn't actually compared hers to humans or that she wasn't talking about that when she said Hylians were similar to humans. There are clearly some physical differences, anyway. "That might not be a thing for Hylians, if it's not something Hylians do then it's probably not something you'll like. So, stealth elixirs, yes, I want to try one, if they work like you say I want, um, how many do you have? What's the shelf life?"

"It's strange enough I wouldn't be surprised if I'd never heard of it even if it was. Anyway. I have half a dozen? And I could whip up about forty of them before too long with the ingredients I have. I'm not actually sure about the shelf life. I store them in the Slate's inventory. Maybe Bar has a book about elixirs."

He asks Bar for a book that mentions the shelf life of stealth elixirs from Hyrule. "I need to know the shelf life before I decide how many I want. What ingredients do you use to make them?"

"Certain flowers, certain species of insects and small critters like frogs and snails native to Hyrule. Oh, and monster parts. The monster parts are important, they're full of magic."

That seems like a really weird way for magic to work. He skims the book for relevant-looking headings, finds one, reads a bit.

"I think I just want a few, maybe four or five. What makes the monster parts magic?"

"...Monsters are magic? They have a tiny tiny part of Ganon's power in them, just like Hylia's chosen and blessed artifacts like the Hero's Sword have part of Hylia's power. I think."

"And that continues even after the monster is dead? Uh, if someone somehow destroyed one of the weapons I enchanted for you, that would just break the enchantment, you couldn't somehow get defense magic out of the ruined pieces. Not that that's likely to come up."

"Maybe Hyrule's magic is more sticky or something."

"Sounds like it. Hey, it's been great talking to you but I think if I do nothing else but read all the books I need to while I'm here and sleep when I feel like it I'll end up close enough to exactly a day past when I came in that I won't feel tired too soon or something when I get home. Anything else I can do for you before that?"

With a slight blush, "...Iiiii want one of those toothbrushes. I'm curious. And I can always, uh, actually clean my teeth if it doesn't work that way. Still want a few stealth elixirs?"

"Of course!" He gets a toothbrush out of the pile of stuff from Tileworld. "How many elixirs is a toothbrush worth to you?"

"I was gonna give you a bunch anyway, so I'll give you... Five mediumish ones? That's what I have already made. Should last ten hours or so each I think."

"Sure, that works." Valanda hands over the toothbrush.

And Link produces elixirs from thin air. "I think I'll probably go now. It was nice to meet you and good luck with everything!"

And out she goes.